Higher Stakes: A Fanfiction of the Dresden Files
by Caustic Paladin
Summary: Complete! Spoilers for "Changes," ignores GS. Harry Dresden returns to life, lands in the Nevernever, meets Buffy Summers, Xander and Dawn, who help him return to Chicago, then with his hunt for his killer. Ignores S-8 comics after "Time of Your Life."
1. Chapter 1

_The Dresden Files is copyright Jim Butcher. Buffy the Vampire Slayer is the property of Joss Whedon. This story is licensed under the Creative Commons as derivative, noncommercial fiction._

**_Note to readers: I do not write other people's stories, ideas, or original characters. Please don't ask._**

I fought my way through the last barrier— what I hoped would be the last barrier, anyway— between me and reality, and I made it just ahead of the thing pursuing me. Since it didn't know how to get through the barrier (I wouldn't have, if not for my legacy gift from my mother) and it hadn't been summoned by anyone on the far side of the barrier, it couldn't come through. I heard its screams of rage and hate as the walls between layers of reality closed right behind me, and I collapsed to the ground with a gasp of relief.

Then I realized that I didn't need to gasp, still, dammit! I'd thought this was the way home, to the real world, to Chicago— but I felt no ill effects, physically, of a chase that, had I a normal body, would have left me gasping for breath, fighting off muscle cramps, and a pounding in my head.

I rolled over, sat up— and stared around me. I knew this place, and while it wasn't home, it was close to home, and I knew that I could get home from here… because for the first time since I'd died, I could feel magic inside me! Not a lot, not anything like enough for the kind of fight I so often ended up in, but magic!

"Hot damn, I'm back in the game!" I said aloud. I stood, looked down— the pants I'd imagined a couple of layers of reality back were on me, and the shoes— but the shirt I'd called up was a shredded mess, and it was damned cold here in the realms of the Winter Court of Unseelie Fey. "Of course, I'm severely underdressed, have no staff, no blasting rod, no duster and a serious jones for a can of Coke, but this is a definite improvement!"

I started walking, following the gentle slope I was on downhill, hoping to find either a stream or a path. In maybe half an hour of teeth-chattering walk, I reached a snow-free dirt path, and I punched the air and hissed, "Yessss!" I knew that trail, though not this section of it. It was a major thoroughfare through the Winter lands (hence it being snow-free), and all I had to do was figure out which way to go on it. I had no idea where I was in Winter's realm, and I really didn't want to stop and ask anyone. I might be the Winter Knight, still— I'd made that bargain with Queen Mab in exchange for her healing my broken back and giving me more power to throw at the monsters who'd kidnapped Susan's and my daughter— but I might not be, too. I didn't know for sure how long I'd been dead, and Mab might have found another patsy, or she might not. The trickle of magic in my being wasn't much of a hint, and I couldn't feel that cold power like I had when it was first given to me, but then, I was so cold that I couldn't be sure I'd feel anything if it was there.

I stood beside that dirt road, wishing for a coin to flip, and the decision was made for me; off to my left, a woman screamed, though it sounded more like a shriek of anger than fear or pain. That was it— decision made. I went that way at a run.

I came around a sharp curve in the road— and stopped, staring in plain amazement.

Ten feet in front of me was a dead… uh, something. It was a Winter creature, plainly— lots of white fur covered its ten-foot long— tall?— corpse, so it'd be comfortable in the cold, and the white of the fur would be great camouflage. Past that? It looked sort of like a giant baboon with stag horns and lion's eyes.

Maybe forty feet past the dead creature were three people fighting five more of the things. Nearest me, a well-built guy and a _very_ well built young woman were fighting a pair of the whatsits. Maybe another twenty feet off, one smaller-but-also-very-nicely-built young woman was fighting _three_ of the damned things— and holding them off easily.

She had a weapon of some sort, something like an ax, though I couldn't see it clearly, and she used it, yes— but she also used her fists and feet, and she was _actually rocking these things with every blow_.

"Stars and stones," I muttered. "Frying pan to fire, that's me."

Then one of the two nearest me managed a sort of pull-the-gut-in dodge of the guy's sword, reached over it and clouted the guy in the shoulder. It was only a graze, really, but it still tossed the man a good twenty feet to the side— and both of that pair turned to the girl with intent to do grievous bodily harm at least.

I couldn't let that happen— so I called up that little bit of magic I could feel, used it in the way most familiar to me to get the most bang for my buck (well, my five cents, anyway). I gathered my power, whirled my right hand in a swift circle, finished with it pointing at the critter nearest the young lady and yelled, "Fuego!"

A thin line of fire leapt from my hand, impacted on the chest of the creature— and, as I'd hoped, set its fur on fire. While it was panicking and jumping back, I repeated the process and nailed its buddy the same way.

Apparently these two had never had that safety lecture about "stop, drop and roll." They both fled into the woods, screaming and spreading the fire over their fur as they ran.

I turned to the three surrounding the smaller woman, picked the one furthest from her, yelled, "Incoming!" followed by "Fuego!"— and sent the last of my scanty supply of magic that way. It hit the biggest of the three whatsits, set its fur ablaze— and the little blond there kicked a second one into it, setting that one alight, too. Damn, she was good!

As I bent over and placed my hands on my knees, gasped for breath— using magic is tiring, and I'd not had a lot to use— and lifted my head to gaze that way, the two on-fire critters fled the scene. The last one bellowed, charged the young woman—

—and died as she spun out of its grasping arms, brought her axe around, and beheaded it in a single swipe.

"Nice," I panted quietly. "She's good. Also strong as hell. Wonder who she is…?"

About that time, the guy and the girl nearer me stepped into view. The guy had black hair and was dressed in black pants, boots and a hide coat that looked way too big for him. The young woman with him had on jeans and a coat, her long brown hair swinging below the collar of that coat (which also looked too big for her) as she bent to look at my face and ask in a slightly nervous tone, "Sir? Are you all right?"

"Fine, or I will be," I said, consciously slowing my breathing and straightening up. "Just… ran myself dry with that, and haven't done anything like it in… well, I don't know how long, but a while."

"I'm glad you did it," said the guy, offering me his hand.

I straightened the rest of the way up, reached for his hand— and finally really looked at him.

Black hair. Black clothes, a turtleneck and cargo pants, almost like a uniform, under the rough-tanned, too-big hide coat. A black eye-patch over his left eye. Regular, even features, handsome, even. I stood there with my hand out, stared at him for a moment, then looked at the girl with him.

Tall, built like a brick house, long brown hair— so long that even in a doubled-up tail, it hung most of the way to her bottom ribs— lush lips, vivid green eyes that I thought should have been blue.

Both of them were familiar. Not perfectly familiar, but damned familiar.

The young man took my hand, shook it, and said, "I'm Xander Harris, and this is Dawn Summers. The blond on your left is—"

"Is her sister, Buffy," I said in wooden tones. "Buffy the vampire slayer.

"Crap! I thought I was almost home, but I can't be, not with you three here!"

"Uh, you know us?" Dawn said, looking wary.

"Not exactly," I sighed, dropping to the ground, suddenly exhausted from emotional letdown and power use. "I… know about you. Some, anyway.

"Damn it, I was so sure that I was almost home, that this was the Way through Faerie… damn it!"

"You're not making a lot of sense, guy," Xander said to me in a 'let's humor the crazy man' tone of voice. " 'Cause to be honest, if this is almost home, I don't think I want to know where you come from. It's about as far from _our_ home as you can get."

"I'm from Chicago," I said, my voice weary and depressed. "It's just that it's a Chicago where you three are part of a television show that later got continued as a comic book."

For a long moment, the three were too stunned to speak. Finally, Buffy herself asked (in a voice a lot like Sarah Michelle Gellar-Prinze's, but not identical to it, just as neither of the other two sounded exactly like the actor who played them, or looked exactly like them), "What… what was the name of this show?"

"It was called Buffy the Vampire Slayer," I said with a sigh. "The comic that came after was called Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Season Eight."

"Holy shit," Xander said in a quiet voice. "We're a TV show?"

"Were," Dawn corrected. "And a comic book? And Buffy got the show named after her? God, that's so unfair!" Her voice had an edge of mirth to it that said she was joking, and Buffy's voice, when she replied, had that same tone.

"What were they gonna call it, Dawn?" Buffy asked, her voice a mix of humorous and lightly shocked. "Dawn the Watcher Sister of Buffy the Vampire Slayer?"

"I happen to like that title," Dawn said. Then she said, "Okay, wait— mister, are you okay?"

"Tired," I said as my head began to spin some. "Tired and… and I want to go home, I thought I was almost there, and now… god, tired can't even begin to describe it."

I flopped back on the ground, ignoring the cold dirt and the bump on the head I gave myself— and that's the last thing I remember for a while, unless we count the sight of Buffy Summers leaning over me and reaching for my forehead with her hand, probably to see if I had a fever.

"All I'm saying is that I hope they got a good actor to play me," Xander Harris said as I woke up. "Somebody with some chops, to capture my depth of character. And not that guy from Supernatural, Dawn, I don't care how much of a hunk you think he is!"

"Ow," I said softly as I sat up. I felt warm and rested, and part of that seemed to be the fur blanket I was under, part of it the fire. Also, I felt… hungry? "I think I'm… hungry?"

"Not unreasonable," Buffy said, moving into view and handing me a rough-carved wooden plate with a slab of slightly-burned-still-bloody meat on it, as well as a pile of what looked to be baby onions and a half a baked potato that was bigger than most whole potatoes I've seen. "You did do— well, whatever that was back there, and you look like you're having a pretty rough time of late.

"So, what's your name?"

"Sorry," I said, taking the plate and setting it down beside me (which took an effort of will— the smell of food had hit me like a ton of bricks). I offered my hand and said, "I'm Harry Dresden."

"Oh my god, the wizard!" Xander gasped. "No way!"

"Oh, hell's bells," I sighed, and dropped my face into my hands. "Let me guess, I was a TV show on your world?"

"Well, yeah, but—" Xander started.

"Hockey stick!" Dawn said, pointing at me suddenly. "Ghost in a skull! Drumstick!"

"Wait, what?" I said, staring at her.

"Dawn, that was just in the TV show," Xander said patiently. "In the books, he uses a hand-carved wizard staff and a hand-carved blasting rod. As well as some other stuff. A shield bracelet, a ring that stores kinetic energy… some other stuff. Also, Bob's not a ghost, he's a spirit of intellect that lives in the skull.

"Sorry, Mr. Dresden— the show stunk, but the books were awesome."

"My head," I said very slowly, "may well explode momentarily. Can you explain a little bit while I eat?"

"No problem," Xander said, clapping his hands together and rubbing them briskly while Buffy handed me a wooden fork (also looking hand-carved) and a pen knife to use as eating utensils.

While I ate, Xander explained that Andrew, the virtual God of Geeks in the world they'd come from, had walked in on Xander watching an episode of the Dresden Files on a website called HULU, and had told Xander that there were books that the show was "really incredibly loosely based on," and that they were a lot better. He'd loaned Xander the first one, and by the time they'd "got yanked out of [their] world," Xander had gotten through eight of the then-eleven book series (with a twelfth coming), and loved them.

"I had the last three on my nightstand, ready to read," Xander said, his eyes faraway. "I guess they're still there."

By that time, I'd finished my food, and I realized that I could feel a trickle of magic in my innards again. I asked Xander what the books had been called, and only felt a little surprise to discover that they had the titles I'd given the case files about each one for my own use.

"Look, I know this may sound intrusive," Xander said when he had finished with a description of the case that I'd called Proven Guilty, which had landed me an apprentice, "but I have to ask… is Molly okay? She managing to stay on the good side of the line?"

"She's… I think she's okay," I said with a sigh. That had been one thing that had been bugging me since I'd realized I was dead and decided not to stand for that. "Last I knew, she was on a naval vessel for treatment after being injured in a battle with the Red Court, but… I don't know. Things have happened since then, and I don't know…."

"Okay, listen," Buffy said, leaning over to catch my eye. "You seemed to think that this place was close to your Chicago, Mr. Dresden—"

"Harry, please, all of you."

"Harry, then," Buffy said, nodding her thanks. "Listen, would it help if I told you that we got yanked off of our world months ago, and we've got no idea where we are?"

That got my attention. "You got— this isn't your Earth? Or close to it?"

"No, it's not," Buffy said, shaking her head. "We got jerked off of our world— long story, but we'll give it to you later— and we've been looking for… well, people for at least three months. All our watches have stopped at least once, and we aren't sure of exactly how long we've been here.

"So if this is close to your home… can we help you to find your way?"

"Yes, probably," I said, nodding, then told her the rest, rather than making her ask. "And you can come with me. It's not your world, maybe, but… it's Earth. Probably enough like yours for you to make lives there. And it beats the hell out of hanging around in the Winter Courts."

"Winter courts?" Buffy asked blankly.

"Faeries, Buffy," Dawn said. "Winter and Summer courts, or Unseelie and Seelie, depends on who's telling the stories."

"Right, I remember," Buffy nodded. "Never accept food, drink or gifts, make no deals. Right?"

"Right," Dawn and I said in sync.

"Okay, wait," I said. "Look… if I am close to home, you people can maybe solve a problem I think I may have for me. Of course, you should like that— because to do it, you'll have to go to my Chicago, if I can find the way there."

"Maybe you should start from the beginning?" Buffy suggested.

I sighed, opened my mouth— and Xander said, "Hang on a second, Harry— I remember the books really well. Let me tell as far as I read, and you can correct me if you need to. That way, we both find out how accurate the books are."

"Good thought," I said, and nodded. "Thanks, Xander."

He grinned, which made him look a little more like Nicholas Brendan, who'd played him on TV— and somehow made me relax.

Apparently, the guy who wrote the books about me had a really good idea of what was happening to me. From the way Xander danced around certain subjects, I got the idea that the writer, whoever he was, had too good an idea.

Only once did I have to interrupt, and that was when Xander was talking about the Death Masks case, the case where I'd first run across Nicodemus and the Nickelheads, a bunch of fallen angels with a bad, bad attitude— and more power than I had ever seen in any one being, which was bad since there were thirty of them, or potentially that many.

Xander started to skip over what happened between me and Susan Rodriguez when I'd had to seal us inside my apartment magically… and she had lost control of the Red Court vampire side of her being, having fought too long and too hard against the people/fallen angels that were trying to kill us.

"I think you'd better tell them what happened," I interrupted, looking down at my hands, loosely clasped and hanging between my upraised knees. "It's… no need to get graphic, but it's… it has an effect later."

Xander told Dawn and Buffy that Susan and I had made love, after a fashion, and then got on with the tale— but not before I saw Buffy give me a knowing glance that told me she'd figured it out.

Once Xander had caught his best friends up on my life up to the point where I'd taken Molly under my wing, I told them the rest. I told them about the White Night case, in which fellow Warden Carlos Ramirez and I had taken some White Court vampires to task for their attempted (subtle) genocide on wizards.

I told them about the Small Favor case, where the enmity of the Summer Courts of Faerie and the return of Nicky and the Nickelheads had fallen on me at pretty much the same time, nearly resulted in the corruption of the Archive, the single most powerful (technical) mortal on my world, and had nearly gotten my friend Michael killed, had cost him a piece of his health— but had let him retire and become the family man he wanted to be.

I told them about the Turn Coat case, where I'd outed the traitor to the White Council— and how it hadn't helped enough, how I'd ended up joining Ebenezar McCoy, my former mentor, in forming the Grey Council, in order to counter the stupidity of the White Council, which insisted on denying the existence of the Black Council.

Then I bit the bullet, and I asked Xander if he'd known what the next book had been going to be called.

"Actually, yeah," Xander said, looking somber. "Andrew pretty much ran on about it, because it was the first of the novels about you that violated what he called 'the naming convention' of the books. He pointed out— and I hadn't noticed until he did— that all eleven books before that had two word titles, and the same number of letters in each word. So the twelfth book being called just Changes… that had him and some of the other fans around the world freaking out a little."

"Yeah," I said, sighing and dry-scrubbed my face with one hand. " 'Changes,' yeah. Hells bell, there were a lot of those.

"It started in mid-October, when Susan Rodriguez called me one afternoon and the first thing she said was, 'they've taken our daughter, Harry.' "

Dawn's mouth fell open, Xander made a little sound of surprise— but Buffy just looked at me and nodded a little. She'd figured it out back when Xander told them about my last time with Susan, just like I thought she had.

I told them the rest. The things I'd lost, the things I'd had to do, the deals I'd made, the war I'd fought with the aid of the best friends and family that any man ever had— and the price that Susan had paid, that circumstances had forced me to claim from her. I was silent for a couple of minutes after that, and they were kind— they left me to it.

When I could talk again without my voice going all over the scales like a kid in the throes of puberty, I said, "I won a war. I killed every fucking Red Court vampire in existence— but I didn't care.

"I saved Maggie. That was all I wanted— and more importantly, it was why Susan gave up her life.

"I don't remember anything for a while after that. The next thing I remember is sitting on the steps near the top of that temple, holding Maggie. She'd gone to sleep in my arms, and I just… held her. Held her and looked at her, and loved her as much as I could, because… because Susan was right. I couldn't give her the life she deserved. She'd never be safe, not with the number of people and monsters and monstrous people that hate my guts.

"So I held her as long as I could, then came home, gave her to Father Forthill so he could find her a home, and… well, Thomas had left the key to the Water Beetle for me, so I had a place to stay. I went there, put stuff away, cleaned up a little, and tried to sleep. Didn't work. I felt too…."

"Too full of empty," Buffy said into the silence.

"Yes," I said, nodding my respect at her. " 'Too full of empty,' yes, thank you.

"Murphy came by, and she'd been fired. She was too full of empty, too, and we decided to go get food, get blasted, and see what happened after. She went home to clean up and change, I decided to clean up the rest of the way. I went out on the deck of the boat to wait for her— and somebody killed me. Shot me through the chest, took out a lung and maybe grazed the heart, I think, but they killed me. I went into the lake, heard that bastard Cassius say 'die alone,' heard my mother say 'hush now' to him… then I thought I heard a train, and I died."

That earned me some silence and a couple of cautious looks before Buffy said, "You're awfully warm and not-rotten for a corpse, Harry. Also, you breathe— you have to breathe to snore like you did— and you eat, and you went off behind the little boy's tree once already, and you don't seem dead. I know dead, I'm practically professional at dead, we exchange Christmas cards.

"You aren't dead. How's that work?"

"Maggie," I said softly. "My little girl. She saved me— even though neither of us knew it.

"Remember the Soulfire that Uriel gave me to wield?" They all nodded, and I said, "I thought I'd over-used it in that big fight against the Red Court, thought I'd maybe burned out… well, my soul. And I guess I came really, really close, which would have been… well, I'd have died then, or not long after, and that would have been _it_.

"But I didn't use it all up, quite— and sitting there for an hour, or however long it was, holding Maggie… that replenished it all, and… I'm taking the word of a friend on this, but it sounds right, it feels right, and she… she's got some expertise in the field.

"Holding Maggie, trying to give her all of the love I'd never have time to give her later, then giving her up for her own good, as much as I hated doing that…."

"It supercharged your soul!" Xander said suddenly, sitting bolt upright and looking delighted. "Your soul actually expanded beyond the usual, and that let you… what, work your way back?"

"Sort of," I agreed. "More like… fight my way back. Without magic. Which, frankly, is the hardest thing I've ever done— _after_ letting Maggie go.

"I'm… I don't think I can talk about it yet. I'm sorry, but… it was long and hard and I had more things than usual try to kill me, and… and I'm just not ready yet."

"That's okay," Buffy said, and she reached over and squeezed my hand. "I've been there. I get it."

"Yeah, I guess you would, wouldn't you?" I said, and tried a small smile. I must have done okay, because she smiled back at me.

"So… how can we help you get home?" Xander asked.

"Well, once I find the right place to go through into Chicago— I can find it, thanks to the piece of my mother that came with me into the other side, and is still… sort of with me— once I find that, I'll open it for you three, and send you through. I'll give you a couple of phone numbers and, just in case, addresses— crap, have you guys got any change? I got nothing."

They had almost three bucks in non-pennies between them, and I relaxed after I examined them and found that they looked and hefted just like coins from my Earth. It turned out that they had a little over two hundred dollars in perfectly familiar paper money, too. "Okay, I give you the numbers, you call them, I tell you how to convince the people on the other end that you're bringing a legit message from me, then you get them to… I guess it'll have to be a split group, because when I go through, I'm not sure where I'll come out, though it'll be one of two places. Either the lake near the Water Beetle, or… my grave.

"Either way, I'm probably going to need help to avoid dying again— and I don't think I could ever get away with coming back a second time."

"Okay, we'll help," Buffy said, and stood up. "Right now, though, I need the little girl's tree. Harry, is there any reason not to go right after?"

I thought about that for a minute. I felt pretty well rested, and I had enough magic for what needed doing. I had a full belly, and I was warm enough.

"No, I don't think there is," I said, nodding her way. "All I need is a couple of minutes to meditate on where the Way to Chicago is, and we can get going."

"Oh my god," Dawn said, her voice going dreamy. "Hot showers."

"Cold beer," Xander added in a similar tone.

"Chocolate…." Buffy said as she disappeared behind a tree.

In the end, we were only an hour's walk from the familiar rock wall that led to an alley in Chicago. When we got there, I put my hand on that wall, and— well, I almost cried. I'd had to fight so hard and so long to get here… and now I'd seriously increased my chances of making it, by running into the Scooby Gang and being able to send them through first to make sure I'd have some help if I needed it.

"Well," I said, looking at the wall. "Here we are. You remember the phone numbers? And the messages?"

They all three parroted them back in unison— I'd drilled them on it on the way here— and I grinned in relief. "Okay. Murphy first, then Billy if you can't reach her."

"And we tell them both that they aren't to call Michael, no matter what," Buffy said, nodding. "Why is that, anyway?"

"I don't want anyone in the wizard community knowing I'm back yet," I said. "And last I knew, my apprentice Molly was still living at home. She's… uh, she's likely to be so relieved that she goes a little nuts."

"Gotcha," Buffy said, nodding. She took a deep breath, then said, "Look, I haven't said it yet, but— thanks. For getting us out of here? The little bit we're doing for you is not even enough to repay you, Harry."

"Don't worry," I said, and grinned a little. "I imagine I'll come up with some monster that I need help fighting sooner or later— you can pay me back then."

"Sounds like a plan," Buffy said, and shook my hand. She hefted the Scythe— the weapon made for the Slayer by a group of magically-powered women thousands of years ago— and stepped back to give me room to work.

"I'll wait a day after I send you through," I said as I stepped forward. "Unfortunately, time can be different here, so I'm not sure how long that'll be. As soon as you can arrange it, get a watch on both places I may come through, please?"

"You bet," Buffy said, and the other two nodded.

"Here goes," I muttered. I held my hand a half an inch or so from the rock, passed it from right to left, and made a huge effort of will as I muttered, "Apparturum," and focused my magic.

A rainbow-edged hole opened in the slab of rock, and on the other side, I could see the dingy alley behind what had once been a slaughterhouse in Chicago. I wanted so badly to step through— but it would be crazy. Certain metaphysical laws of magic would interfere, I knew that, and I would end up being shunted to either the place where I'd died— or to my grave, thoughtfully provided years ago by a Red Court vampire who hated my guts. Of course, I'd killed her not long after, years before the rest of the Red Court had died— so I guess I'd come out ahead.

"Okay, go," I urged, panting a little. "One day here— no idea how long there. Good luck!"

"You, too," Buffy said. She waved— and stepped through the door to Chicago.

"Be careful, Harry," Dawn said, and followed her sister.

"See you soon, Harry," Xander said, and tossed me a little salute before he went through the doorway.

Then they were gone, and I could only watch as they looked around in sheer delight for a moment— then moved out of sight, to the right and towards a place where there'd been a payphone not so long ago….

I stared into that grimy, trash-filled alley until the gate I'd opened closed— then sat down to begin the longest wait of my li— of my existence.


	2. Chapter 2

I got the story from the others later, but here's what happened when they got to Chicago:

They came out in the alley with no problems, and walked to the place where I'd told them that they could find a payphone. Miracle of miracles, it still worked, and Dawn made the call to Murphy, since she had the name least likely to trip any alarm bells, like the names Buffy or Xander might.

Murphy answered on the second ring— it was only about seven thirty in the evening when they arrived— and after she said hello, Dawn asked for Karrin Murphy.

"Speaking," Murphy said.

"I have a message for you," Dawn said, crossing her fingers against forgetting any of the things that would prove to Murph that the message really was from me. "It's from Harry Dresden."

Silence from the other end of the phone for a moment, and Dawn swore to me later that said silence had an edge to it. Finally, Murphy said, "I'm listening."

"He told me some things he said should prove it's really from him," Dawn said a little nervously. "First, he still thinks that meeting at an all-night Wal-mart is cheesy. Second, he wants to know if Kincaid still has his teddy-Glock. Third, he is still worried about Mister, and wants to know if anyone's seen him since the fire."

For a moment, there was more silence— then Dawn heard a laugh so loaded with relief that it was part tears, too. "Oh, Dresden, you idiot! You crazy, wonderful idiot! I knew you weren't dead, I knew it!

"Okay— what's your name, miss?"

"I'm Dawn," she replied, relieved to hear that Murphy had accepted my admittedly odd bona fides. "Harry said to tell you that he's almost ready to come back— but he's going to need help, because he really did die, and that means he has to come back at either the place where he died, or at his grave, and that it doesn't matter if you had a body or not, it could be the grave."

"He really… and he's coming back!"

"He said to tell you it's the Soulfire that let it happen— the Soulfire and Maggie replenishing it for him."

"Okay," Murphy said, her voice a little shaky— but only a little. "Where are you, Dawn? We should probably talk about this face-to-face."

"We're at a payphone near the alley that is the Way from Faerie into Chicago," Dawn said, and gave the address I'd given her to give Murphy. "There are three of us— we met Harry in the Nevernever, ma'am, and he sent us here to get help for him."

"I'll get him help," Murphy said, her voice bubbling. "I'll get him every friend he has in the city—"

"Harry said not to tell Michael or his family, not yet," Dawn cautioned. "He needs to stay off the magical radar for a while, and even if Molly's not in trouble, she's probably still being watched, because of the whole Doom of Damocles thing."

"Also, Molly couldn't possibly hide her relief at Harry being back, right," Murphy said. "Okay— three of you, you said? I'll be there in twenty minutes to pick you up, and you can explain everything then."

"We'll try," Dawn said. "Thank you, ma'am—"

"Call me Karrin," Murph instructed. "Ma'am makes me feel… ancient."

"All right, thank you, Karrin."

While they waited, Xander went to a nearby convenient store and got them all sodas, and when Murphy arrived, the three were happily riding a sugar buzz, their first in months.

Murph got out of her Saturn, started towards the three of them— and froze for a moment. Then she came closer, moving slowly and cautiously, and looking the three of them over carefully.

"You aren't actors," Murphy said as she got within ten feet or so and stopped. She looked the three of them over and said, "You aren't… are you?"

"No, Karrin," Dawn said, and stepped forward. "Harry said to tell you that it hit him pretty hard, too.

"I'm Dawn Summers. This is my friend Xander Harris… and my sister, Buffy. The slayer."

At that point, Karrin Murphy stared at the trio for most of a minute, then looked up at the night sky and said, "Only you! Only _you,_ Dresden!"

Then she looked back at the Scooby Gang and said, "Never mind. Come on, let's get you to my place— I want to know everything."

I waited. And I waited. I planned what to say to everyone I know when I first saw them— a Master Smartass must make preparations, you know— and I tried to figure out where I'd stay, what I'd do about a place to live. I wondered about the White Council— had Ariana Ortega's little disease play done them— us, I guess— serious damage, or had someone figured out a treatment before it spread far and killed many?

I wondered about my little girl, hard as I tried not to. Had Father Forthill found her a good, loving family? Did she remember the strange man who saved her from the monsters, or had she mercifully forgotten those horrible few days?

If she remembered, did she have any idea that the man who'd saved her had been her father?

I forced myself away from that line of thinking— it was dangerous for her to be a part of my life, so such thoughts should not be thunk.

Who had taken in Mouse? Whoever it was, I hoped they had deep pockets— my dog ate like a horse. A Clydesdale, even. And Mister… the question about him had been an honest one, not just a way to confirm to Murphy that the Scoobies really had seen me, really were bearing messages from me. It had been real. Was my cat okay? Had he found a home with one of my friends?

Was I the Winter Knight, still? Would Mab, the Queen of Air and Darkness, be forcing me to do her will, making me do things I had no desire to do? Or had dying freed me? She'd said that if I died on my quest to save my daughter, she'd get another, possibly even my half-brother Thomas. Could she really do that? Tame or excise his demon, make him her Knight, give him back his ability to touch the woman he loved? Would she if she could?

How had Buffy, Dawn and Xander ended up in the Nevernever close to my Earth? Did that mean that if I walked far enough, I could maybe step into an Earth where Spider-man was real?

(Wouldn't _that_ be cool!)

And, finally, no matter how hard I tried to avoid thinking about it, I came back around to the Big Question; _who_ _the hell had murdered me— and __**why!**_

I had ideas, but I needed to be on Earth and in a solid body to investigate them, and that meant I had more waiting to do.

Dammit.

Okay, fine. I was a wizard. One of the wise. I would damned well act like it, and wait patiently for my time to go home.

I ate from the food that Buffy and the others had left for me— half-raw-half-burned venison is actually pretty damned tasty, and the wild potatoes and onions that they'd found somewhere made a great meal better.

I went back over my list of greetings for my various friends. I thought about Mouse. I thought about Mister. I ate again. I dozed, too keyed up to truly sleep. I worried about the last step of my trip back to life, and how hard it might be to make it. I ate more. I dozed more.

I went over everything front to back, and back to front.

Finally, the sun went down again, and I turned my eyes to the sky of the Winter Courts, watched for the stars to be in the right place—

— and finally, they fell into the pattern I'd been waiting for. I'd been here for as close to a day as I could measure since I sent the Scooby Gang through. I stood before the slab that opened on Chicago, and I opened a Way there. This time, I didn't see the alley where such a gate normally came out; instead, I saw darkness, and white lines that outlined a body, the body of a tall, slender man with fairly short hair and a pentacle necklace at his throat.

I started to step forward, then stopped— and took the deepest breath I could. Whether I came out in Lake Michigan or underground in the graveyard where my prepaid grave and tombstone were, air? It was going to be at a premium.

I stepped through, felt a twisting, jerking sensation, like when you dream of falling and jerk yourself awake—

—and weight crashed in on me, tried to force the air out of my lungs. It was pitch black, but I could smell soil.

My grave then. Okay, I needed to hope that Murphy or Billy was up there working on getting it open, and I needed to dig myself. Moving as slowly and steadily as I could, I started trying to bring my arms to vertical, the better to punch through the dirt to the surface.

I heard voices, and I listened while I worked at getting out before I died again.

"I'm sorry, but I can't explain it," said the most welcome voice I could imagine right then; Murphy! "I can't explain it— and I wish you'd just leave and let us finish what we have to do."

I heard another voice, too far off for me to identify, but one that was familiar, and that I was pretty sure was male. Murphy let whoever say whatever, then said, "I can't explain. I'm sorry, but that's the way it is."

Then I heard the most welcome sound I'd heard since— well, since Murphy's voice.

I heard a big, deep, ringing bark, one that I hadn't heard often, but that I knew and was so happy to hear that it wasn't even funny.

MOUSE! My dog was okay, and he was up there above me.

"Mouse what— oh my god! Buffy! Xander! Movement!"

I felt the earth above me sort of thump, and I heard Buffy's voice calling, "Listen, don't try to dig out, just lift out your right arm! Focus on that! I can try to meet you halfway!"

I got my left arm across my body, grabbed my right wrist in my left hand, and forced both up with the strongest, steadiest pressure I could manage.

I bumped something, let go of my own wrist, but kept my left hand near my right. A small hand, small but very strong, wrapped around my right wrist, let my right hand grip the wrist above it. A second hand came in, crossed our joined hands, found my left— and then came a slow, steadily increasing pressure….

Suddenly, I was sitting up in an open grave— my open grave— no coffin there (crap, if there had been, that would have been new _levels_ of bad), and there was dirt up to my sternum, and I was cold and couldn't see because my eyes were caked shut with dirt— but I could breathe, and I did so noisily.

Buffy said something I didn't hear, and a moment later, water hit my face in several brief, narrow streams, and then someone toweled off my face, got my eyes clear— and I saw Buffy kneeling on the dirt in front of me, a towel in her hands and a squeeze-bottle of water beside her knees.

Buffy didn't do anything more, just got up and hopped out of the hole— the grave— and before I could even complain about still being stuck in the dirt, Karrin Murphy dropped in to replace her. She knelt in front of me, looked at me with eyes brimming with tears above a smile so wide that it had to hurt, and said in a conversational tone, "Dammit, Harry, I always knew you were a screw up— but it seems you can't even _die_ right!"

"Well, gee, Karrin," I said, my own voice ragged with tears, "I figured that I had to come back— without me around, who'd keep you out of trouble?"

She flung her arms around me and mine went around her, and we hugged for a while, and never mind the mud. Then she stood up, let Buffy back down, and Buffy— five two or so, not much over a hundred pounds, remember— manhandled me out of that grave the rest of the way, and made it look easy.

Once I was standing, Xander reached down and offered me a hand out. I took it— and as soon as I was standing beside my grave, before I could even look around to see who else was there, I was hit in the stomach by a fur-covered skull with most of two hundred pounds of fur-covered muscle behind it. I fell on my butt in the snow— snow? Okay, it had taken me a while to get back, even in Chicago, it rarely snows in October— and Mouse, my huge, magical, half-temple-dog dog tried to sit in my lap and lick my face clean the rest of the way.

I hugged him, and held on, and tried to pretend that I wasn't crying. I think his licking my face actually helped there….

Then I heard a voice I shouldn't have heard, and I actually managed to look up as Michael Carpenter, my other best friend besides Murphy and father of my former (maybe former?) apprentice said in a voice loaded with emotion, "Merciful God! Harry, is it… is it really…? Are you… alive!"

"Hi, Michael," I said, working my way to my feet with Xander and Dawn's help. (Xander pulled me up after Dawn managed to cajole Mouse into getting off of my lap.) "Yeah, it's me. And I'm really alive. I think I can even prove it to your satisfaction."

I took three long steps and offered Michael my outstretched hand. He smiled just a little, reached out and engulfed my hand in his larger, more powerful one. For a moment, we just shook, and he grinned, knowing that if I'd been undead of some sort, or a construct or illusion, it wouldn't stand up to the touch of even a retired Knight of the Cross.

Then he lunged forward, dropped his cane in the snow, and wrapped me in a bear hug, weeping totally without shame as he thumped on the back hard enough to almost hurt and bellowed, "By the all the angels in heaven, you're alive!"

"I am," I agreed, and thumped him back for a moment. "And since I am alive, you can stop with the thumping, I don't need my heart smack-started."

"My God." Michael thumped a couple of more times, then stepped back and accepted his cane from Murphy. "It really is you— attitude and all.

"Harry… I know it makes you uncomfortable, so if you'll excuse me for a moment?"

Michael turned away, looked around, spotted a gravestone topped with a cross a couple of rows off, hobbled over to it, and stood there with his head bowed, praying silently.

"I didn't call him," Murphy said as soon as I turned to her. "He arrived about a minute before you showed up, Harry. He came to visit your grave. He remembered that this day is one that's sort of special to wizards, and he came to visit you. He wasn't at all happy to see that we had most of your grave dug up, and then— well here you are."

"Today's special to wizards?" I said, trying to think past the monstrous relief I felt at being home and alive.

"It's December twentieth, Harry," Karrin said and grinned a little. "Winter solstice."

Wow. A trip that had felt like a hard three days to me had been more like two months. But I could deal with that.

"Billy and the Alphas?" I said, referring to a pack of werewolves who were good friends, as well as great backup on occasion.

"At the docks, watching the water around the Water Beetle," Murphy said, and gave me a grin. "I sort of thought you'd end up here, and besides, if someone needed to go into the water after you? It'd be a lot less likely to seriously harm a wolf.

"Let me go call them, okay? They deserve to know you're back."

"Good point," I said. I sighed and accepted a blanket that Dawn passed me. I looked at her and the other Scoobies and said, "Thanks, folks. I'd have been in a heap of trouble if you hadn't run interference for me."

"Are you kidding?" Buffy said, looking at me as though I were crazy. "Harry, we've had _showers_. And Coke. And hamburgers. And French fries. And pizza, and _chocolate!_

"Well worth helping a new friend get home, y'know?"

I grinned at that, then dropped to my knees to give Mouse a good scratching, and to let him fawn over me some more. I had some questions, but I doubted that Buffy and company could answer them, so I'd just content myself with getting back in my dog's good graces by making up for lost head-scratching time.

"Billy and the others are on their way to my house," Murphy said as she came back over. "You're going to want a shower and some clean clothes before you start telling us how you pulled this off.

"Now, before you ask, Mister is fine. He's with Molly. I hunted for him as soon as I could after you… disappeared, and brought him home with me when I found him. When Molly got back to town, she and I traded— I took Mouse to take care of until you came home, and she took Mister.

"Molly's fine. She's officially free of the Doom of Damocles, a member of the White Council, and a Warden."

My mouth fell open and I made some sound, though I'm not sure anyone heard it. Murphy laughed at my expression and said, "She's a hero of the Vampire War, Harry, and of the Battle of Chichén Itzá. They didn't have a lot of choice but to free her from the Doom and make her a Warden once Ebenezar got done talking her up.

"Molly's got her own apartment now— nice little place, you'll hate it, she's got more conveniences than you did."

"And she keeps me very busy making sure they stay working," Michael said from behind Murphy. He stepped forward and said, "Harry… there's someth—"

"Michael, shut up!" Murphy said, whirling on him and poking him in the chest. "This isn't th—"

"It is the time." Michael's face was set, his expression determined and his eyes bright. "It is the time, Karrin. Why else do you think I was here when he came back? Why do you think that I'm here now, if not for this?"

"Michael, please," Murphy said, holding up a hand. "Harry just came back from being dead, for God's sake, and he needs time to—"

"Hey!" I shouted. When the two of them looked at me, I said, "I'm right here, you know!

"Michael… whatever it is, tell me. Murphy, I'm fine! I can take it, whatever it is."

"Harry—" Murphy started, her eyes dark and worried.

"Murph. I can handle it." I met her gaze for as long as she'd hold mine— we'd never Soulgazed, and I don't think Murph was looking for that. I proved right when she looked away and sighed. "Thank you, Karrin.

"Michael. Tell me."

"I… have to tell you something else, first," Michael said, looking sad and kind of old. "Harry… I thought you were dead. Molly refused to believe it, Karrin refused to believe it, but I… I did. Even Warden Ramirez didn't believe it, or Captain Luccio, they both said you were too mean to die… but I thought you were dead. I… I prayed about it, before I took any action, and I… when I got no answer, I thought that you had to be dead." He gulped air, and I realized that Michael was close to crying. "I thought… I thought you would rest easier if I did it, and Charity agreed. The other children, when asked them, they were fine with it, though we didn't explain… everything.

"Molly… she thought it was a bad idea. She believed you'd be back, her and Karrin, and that was their only objection."

"Their only objection to what, Michael?" I asked. I tried to keep my voice level, but I had no idea what he was talking about, and that was starting to get on my nerves.

"To… Harry, I thought… I thought you were dead." Michael shook his head and said, "Merciful God, I thought you were _dead,_ and that the extra protections I have as a former Knight of the Cross, I thought you'd _approve_….

"Harry, Charity and I… we are foster parenting Maggie."

I sat down in the snow very suddenly, and stared up at my friend. "You… Maggie? _My_ Maggie?"

"Yes, Harry," Michael said, and he moved over in front of me and squatted to put his eyes on a level with mine. I knew that had to hurt his bad leg— but he did it anyway. "I thought… I wanted your daughter to be as safe as possible. I wanted to… I wanted a piece of my friend still in my life. Charity and I met her when we went to see Father Forthill about getting a message to Molly— going through the church works very well with the American military— and we both liked her. She's… a good child, Harry. Smart and kind, and… and we took her in.

"Can you forgive me?"

That snapped me out of my shock. "Forgive you?" I asked, stunned. "Forgive you! Dammit, Michael, I can't figure out how to properly _thank_ you, and you're asking me if I can forgive you! I'm supposed to be the one who's sometimes slow on the uptake, here!"

It was Michael's turn to suffer drop-jaw-and-gape. "You were right," I said, and reached across to squeeze his shoulder. "If I had been dead… it's exactly what I would have wanted.

"As it is now… well, I'm gonna let Murphy take me to her place so I can shower and put on clean clothes, and I'd appreciate it if you came too— is that okay, Murph?"

"It's fine," Murphy said, nodding and looking relieved. "Please, Michael, come on over. I just— Harry, what about Molly?"

"Can you let telling Molly wait a little bit, Michael?" I asked as I stood and helped him up. "I know she's been scared and worried— but I need to stay under the radar on the magical side of things for a little bit."

"Of course," Michael said, nodding. "I'll just follow you to your house, Karrin. Or maybe I could take Mouse? And…."

Michael finally stopped and took a really good look at Buffy, Xander and Dawn, and he frowned a little. I could see him replaying things in his mind, going over what had been said and done since he'd arrived. Murph had called at least Buffy and Xander by name, and I think she'd said Dawn's name, too. I knew that Molly had been a huge fan of the show, and that Michael had seen at least some of it….

"Harry, who are your friends?" Michael asked. "They seem rather… familiar."

"They should," I said, nodding. "Michael Carpenter, my other best friend, meet Xander Harris, Dawn Summers and Dawn's older sister, Buffy— the vampire slayer."

"Are you… serious, Harry?" Michael asked slowly.

"I am," I said, nodding. "I met them in the Nevernever, and they agreed to come ahead and arrange help for me, since I knew that I was going to come back in one of two potentially really bad places. Either here or in the lake— I figured I'd need help either way. Billy and the Alphas were at the lake, they'll be meeting us at Karrin's."

"Ah," Michael said, and frowned a little. "As I recall, that's a rather small house, Harry. Perhaps we could move everyone over to our house? And Xander and Mouse can ride with me, to make more room in Karrin's car?"

"Is that a good idea with all the kids?" I asked. "Some things, we may not want them to hear, Michael."

"Oh, that shouldn't be a problem," Michael said, smiling a little. "I've put an addition on the house, Harry, and the children understand about boundaries. I have a rather large recreation room, we'll all just go in there and put Matthew and Alicia in charge of the others."

"What about Daniel?" I asked. "He didn't move out or anything, did he?"

"No, but he's working at a theater, now, and he's there until eleven tonight." Michael gave me a cautious smile and said, "It's only about six thirty, now. If we get there early enough, Harry… you'll see Maggie."

I closed my eyes and tried not to let them leak tears. I failed, but no one seemed to notice. "I'd like that." My voice was rough and I had to take a deep breath to steady myself. "Does she… know anything about who I am?"

"I don't think so, no," Michael said gently. "She doesn't talk about her imprisonment, and we aren't pushing her on that. She has nightmares, but they are… diminishing."

"Okay," I said, and swallowed hard. "Xander, you want to ride with Michael? He's a contractor, you guys can swap house-building stories."

"Sounds good to me, thanks, Michael," Xander said, nodding. "Mouse, you think you can let Harry out of your sight for a while? Just for the drive back to Karrin's house?"

Mouse (who'd not gone more than six inches from my side since I came out of my grave) looked up at me and chuffed a sigh.

"I'll be okay, Mouse," I said. I bent and pressed my forehead against his for a moment and said, "Believe me, pal, I'm not planning on going away again any time soon."

Mouse wagged his tail a little, slobbered on my face once, then went over to stand next to Xander and wait to be led to Michael's truck.

Michael hugged me once more— both of us ignored the dirt that covered me— and led Xander and Mouse out of Graceland Cemetery and off to where he'd parked his truck. While I'd been absorbing various and sundry revelations and greeting people and other old friends, Buffy had managed to fill my grave back in; not that she shoveled back in the four feet of dirt that had been dug up. When it had been dug up, the earth from my grave had been carefully piled on two big tarps, one on the side of my grave, the other near the foot. Buffy had simply used her enchanted strength to lift the corners of those tarps and dump the dirt back in. She was tamping the sods down as I turned to Murphy and asked, "Are you really prepared to let me in your car while I'm covered in dirt like this, Murph?"

"Of course I am," Murphy said with a devilish little grin. "Provided, of course, that you sit very carefully on the clean plastic tarp that's been draped over the back seat and the floor of the back seat, and don't touch the upholstery or the door handles. We'll get you in and out, Harry."

"I knew there'd be a catch," I said, giving a put-upon sigh. "But I don't mind, so long as I'm either behind you or Buffy, and she moves the seat up if it's her." I looked at Dawn and said, "Sorry, but as tall as you are, I'd be wearing my knees for earrings if I sat behind you."

"That's okay," Dawn said brightly, a wicked gleam in her eye. "I like being taller than Buffy— mostly because she hates it."

I laughed all the way to Murphy's car. On the ride to Murphy's house, I tried to prepare myself for the idea of seeing my little girl later that evening— and not letting her know that she was my little girl.

She was in the one place I'd have asked to put her if I'd dared to ask. Michael and Charity had raised some damned good kids, and I couldn't imagine better foster parents for Maggie… but they'd already raised seven kids, and I'd never have asked. Now that they'd offered, that they'd done it without my asking, well… I thought I could leave her with them and feel good about it. Go over more often, see her when I could, maybe become "Uncle Harry," even. And I could watch her for signs of magic that way, too. Sure, the talent usually ran through the mother's side of the family, and Susan hadn't been a wizard, but the word is "usually," not "always." And Susan had a gift, a mild one, for accepting magic as magic. To me, at least, that was a minor form of magic in and of itself— so Maggie developing a wizard's powers? Not impossible, not at all.

I sat and thought about how to deal with seeing my daughter in a couple of hours, and I came up with several contingencies.

None of them got used, because no part of that meeting between Maggie and I went as I'd planned.


	3. Chapter 3

Do you have any idea of the sheer delight that comes from simple hot water and clean clothes? When you've been without either for just a few days subjective time?

That shower, and the clean clothes that Murphy had bought for me? Heavenly.

We won't talk about what came before that. Or, okay, we will. Before that, I stood in Karrin's little garage, and she ran a small hose and sprayer out from her kitchen sink and sprayed me clean (with warm water, mercifully). Of course, I was glad she had a towel ready for me, because I'd forgotten that the clothes I was wearing at that time were essentially enchantments— which don't stand up well under running water.

Murphy got an eyeful, and I got to blush new and different shades of purple, before I got that towel wrapped around my waist.

After that shower— I shaved while I was in there, Murphy had bought a pack of disposable razors and a can of shaving cream as well as all the other toiletries I might need— I got dressed in the clothes she'd bought me, blue jeans and a button-down white shirt, socks and a pair of cowboy boots in my size and the style I liked best. I found a bunch of receipts taped to the box the boots came in, and a note from Murphy saying, "I know your stupid, stubborn, male pride will have you insisting on paying for the clothes and stuff. You can pay me back whenever. No hurry."

I'd been going to ask, and it left me somewhere between amused and annoyed that she'd anticipated me.

I went out to the living room— and Will Borden, leader of the werewolf pack who called themselves the Alphas, grabbed me in a hug that lifted me off of the ground— and Will's only about five-six to my six-nine.

"I KNEW YOU WEREN'T DEAD!" Will bellowed as he spun me around like a kid and set me down. "I KNEW IT!"

"Well, technically, I _was_ dead, Will," I said, and clapped him on the shoulder. "It's just that I figured that if I didn't come back, you and the rest of the Alphas would be so bored that you'd start chasing cars. Or cats. Or something."

"Oh, ha-ha," Georgia, Will's wife, said as she stepped in and hugged me— and did so carefully, because she was very, very pregnant. "Harry, bad jokes and all, I'm glad you're back."

"Good lord, woman," I said, staring at her. "When are you due, tomorrow?"

"No, sometime between Christmas and New Year's Day," Georgia said with a smile that showed dimples and a deep contentment. "You remember Marci, don't you Harry?"

Marci was a small and plainly-pretty girl who'd been one of the Alphas when I first met them, but had moved away sometime between then and the case I'd called Dead Beat— not long after graduating college, if I recalled correctly. Now she was standing and coming over to me… and holding hands in a rather obviously romantic way with Andi, the redhead who'd been one of those to stay, and who'd been dating Kirby before he'd been killed in action.

And now she was with Marci? You learn something new every day. Never mind, Andi looked _happy_— and that was a nice thing to see, given how slowly she'd bounced back after Kirby's death.

I shook hands with Marci, hugged Andi and then looked around and found Michael, who was just hanging up Murphy's phone.

"Are we about ready to go?" I asked, trying not to reveal my impatience.

"I suppose we might as well," Michael said with a sigh. "I haven't managed to reach Charity yet, but she won't be angry— just surprised."

"Not able to reach her?" I said, trying not to worry.

"Nothing to worry about, Harry," He said with a slightly weary smile. "It's just that Alicia has a boyfriend, and he and his family went out of town for Christmas. She's almost certainly on the phone with him."

"Oh, boy," I said, rolling my eyes. "She's what… sixteen, now?"

"Yes, last August," Michael said with a nod.

"So, you want your sword back?" I asked, grinning.

"No, thank you, though," Michael said with a laugh. "He's a good young man, Harry— and besides, he's mortally terrified of Charity."

"That makes sense," I said, nodding. "Also proves he's got a brain."

Michael laughed outright at that, and had to lean against the wall for a moment to get his breath. (I'd been terrified of Charity myself for years, until the Proven Guilty case— when I'd put my life on the line to rescue Molly, then bound my life to hers by agreeing to mentor her while she was under the Doom of Damocles, Charity had softened considerably towards me. Add in that I'd kept secrets for her, even from Michael, and she'd decided that I was an all right guy, I think.)

"Well, before we go, Harry, there's one thing to do," Murphy said, grinning. She walked over to the little Christmas tree in one corner of the living room, bent and pulled out a fairly large package wrapped in bright red paper with pictures of Snoopy and Woodstock in Santa hats dancing all over it. "Catch."

She tossed the package to me, and I caught it reflexively. It was fairly heavy, but soft.

"What the heck, Murph, it's not Christmas yet," I protested.

"Nope," she agreed. "Just open it, Dresden— after you check the tag."

I read the tag, saw that it was from both Karrin and Molly, and said, "You sure? Shouldn't we wait until Molly's around?"

"Just open it, Harry," Murphy said, glaring at me. "You can thank her later."

I cowered away, said, "Okay, okay, don't shoot me, lady!" and opened the present.

Then I stood there holding it and staring— and I teared up. Coming back from the dead apparently leaves your emotions really close to the surface….

"Oh, man." I held up the medium-dark grey leather duster that had been inside the paper and looked at it with a smile that was both delighted and kind of sad. "Murph… Karrin. Thank you."

"The one thing we found in the water near the boat was the remains of your old duster," Karrin said in a quiet voice. "I knew you'd need another one, so Molly and I got together and got that one. We didn't think you'd want a black one again, so… grey. And it's starting to snow, so you'll need it."

"It's perfect," I said, and swung it on. It fit perfectly, and I strode over to Karrin and hugged her fiercely in thanks. She gave back as good as she got, then let go and looked up at me.

"Just don't go forgetting that this one isn't bulletproof, Dresden."

"Yet," I said, and gave her a grin. "Give me time."

With that, we left for Michael's place so that I could tell my friends what I could about my trip back to life, and hear about how Buffy, Dawn and Xander had been in the Nevernever for me to meet.

I rode with Michael this time, me and Mouse in the cab with him. He was quiet, and I didn't push— there was just enough snow on some of the less traveled streets to merit extra-careful driving, and we stayed mostly on those streets. (Since he'd been injured and retired as a Knight of the Cross, Michael had lost some of the vision in one eye, and he tended to avoid heavy traffic when possible due to that.)

We arrived at his house just ahead of Murphy in her Saturn and the Alpha's in Will and Georgia's SUV, and Charity came out to see what was up with the extra vehicles.

When I got out of Michael's truck, Charity was only a couple of paces away, having come down the walk (potentially slippery with a light coating of snow) to make sure that Michael didn't slip and fall. She saw me step down out of Michael's truck and her eyes went wide, her jaw dropped, and she gasped, "Harry?"

She usually called me "Mr. Dresden." I wasn't sure how to take the use of my first name, but decided to treat it as a good thing.

"Hello, Charity," I said as I closed the truck door. "It's really me. I'm really okay."

"Dear lord in heaven," Charity said slowly. "Oh, Harry, we thought…."

"I know," I said quietly. "I know Charity. Michael told me, and you need to know— I'm not angry, not at all. I'm grateful, Charity. If I _had_ been dead? Well, if it had been _permanent?_ This is exactly what I would have wanted."

She stepped forward, took my hand in hers— then jerked me forward and flung her arms around my neck. I hugged back, despite my shock, and she said in a wavering voice, "I'm glad we were wrong, Harry— and thank you for your blessing over us taking Maggie in.

"What happens now?" She dropped out of the hug, but took my hands in hers. "We'll abide by your wishes, Harry, whatever they are."

"I want her to stay here," I said, and heard Michael sigh in relief behind me. I managed a smile, though not a great one. "Susan was right about me not being able to give her a steady, solid home and life, Charity. Maggie would be in danger in my custody, and I can't… if I give up my work, how can I be her father? How can I not be out there, fighting to make this a better world for her? For Maggie, for your kids, for _all_ kids? How could I stop fighting that fight and still claim to love her?

"But I think I'll be coming over more often, if that's okay. Maybe she can get to know her Uncle Harry, you think?"

"I think," Charity said in a slow, careful voice, "that I have spent a great many years wronging you, Harry Dresden. A man who can say those things and mean them as you do? Yes. I have wronged you, and I am sorry.

"And you will always be welcome in our home, Harry. _Always_."

Damn, there came those ready, easy tears again. I was going to have to get hold of myself— hard to be a tough-guy-wizard-PI when you get leaky around the eyes at the drop of a hat.

And of course, that's when the rest of my plan got shot to hell— as a cab pulled up to the driveway and disgorged Molly Carpenter, Michael and Charity's oldest daughter, and my apprentice. Former apprentice, according to Murph.

"Nothing ever goes as planned, I swear," I muttered as Molly started up the drive. "Well, at least I can be fairly sure she's not being watched, what with her being a Warden and all."

I stepped forward, past the end of Michael's truck, and called, "Hey, padawan! What's this I hear about you graduating to full-on Jedi knight?"

Molly stopped in her tracks for a second, and stared at me. Then she reached up and pinched her own cheek, muttered, "Ow!"— and then squealed, "Boss!" and charged at me, flung herself on me in a hug so enthusiastic that Charity had to catch me as I staggered backwards. I gave back as good as I got, and I even remembered to say, "Thanks for the Christmas present, Molly— Karrin gave it to me early, since I came back with pretty much nothing."

"Oh my GOD, Harry!" Molly said, and kissed me loudly on the cheek. "I _knew_ you weren't dead! And I have Mister, Murphy found him, he's fine— but I think he misses you, he sometimes sort of sits and yowls at nothing at all, and why didn't someone TELL me you were back, dammit!"

"That was my fault, Molly," I said, and took her by the shoulders. "I wasn't aware that you'd been freed of the Doom and made a Warden, kiddo, so I thought you'd have your own personal Morgan, watching you like he did me. I need to stay off the radar as far as the magical community goes, for a while at least, so I asked Murphy not to tell you— I'm sorry."

"You'd better be sorry!" Molly growled— and punched me in the arm before bouncing up on her toes and kissing my cheek again. "Beastly man.

"So, why are you hiding out, boss? And— oh! Uh, Mom?"

"He knows, Molly," Charity said as we started towards the house. "He knows— and he's given his blessing."

"Okay," Molly said, letting out a long, relieved breath. "Sorry, but that sort of a surprise? Nobody needs that.

"Now, why the hiding?"

"Well, kid," I said, giving her my best Bogart. "I really _was_ dead, see— and I want to stay dead until I give the rat that done it a taste of their own medicine."

"Oh. Well. Okay then." After that, Molly just hung on to my arm until we got inside.

There were a bunch of kids inside in the living room of Michael's house, the usual passel of Carpenter children— plus one, the only one I really had eyes for.

Maggie looked wonderful. Tall, healthy, and she had a smile on her face as she laughed at something someone had said. She looked like Susan, had her mother's hair and eyes, but the nose, the jaw… those showed the influence of my genetics, I thought. Or maybe it was wishful thinking.

Then Amanda Carpenter saw me with the others and called, "Oh, hello, Bill!"

(Amanda had called me Bill for a long time, since, as she put it, they already had a Harry [her youngest brother, named for me by Michael].)

The other kids saw me and all came trooping over to say hello. (I was popular, because I often led to them getting to do things like throw snowballs at their eldest sister— with _parental permission!)_ Maggie, looking a little shy, came with them, and I managed not to stare at her— until she gasped aloud and said, "I _know_ you!"

"Matthew, Alicia, we adults and Maggie will be in the recreation room, and we are not to be disturbed," Michael said quickly, in a voice that brooked no argument.

"Yes sir," Matthew said, and started tugging the younger ones out, aided by Alicia.

Michael himself stepped forward and, moving slowly and carefully, as though he was afraid of startling her, scooped Maggie up and said, "Let's all go into the recreation room to talk, all right, Maggie?"

"All right, Michael," Maggie said in a small voice, her eyes never leaving my face.

I felt someone take my hand and start tugging me after Michael, looked down to see Murphy looking at me with slightly worried eyes.

"I… wasn't expecting her to remember me, Karrin," I muttered as she pulled me to a door on the far side of Michael's living room, one that hadn't been there the last time I was here. "I… what do I do now?"

"You do your best," Murphy said quietly. "You deal with it in whatever way you can, Harry— and you do it knowing that it'll all be okay in the end." I looked down at her when she said that, and she quirked a smile at me. "Harry, all of this is a direct result of Michael and Charity taking Maggie in— and of Michael showing up at your grave just one minute or so before you came through, came back.

"I know you aren't much on religion, and I know you aren't ever going to be any sort of Christian— but even you admit that god exists. Well, it's pretty obvious to me that he had a hand in all this. And since this going bad would hurt you, Maggie, Michael and Charity? I _know_ it won't go bad."

I thought about that— and I relaxed just a tiny bit, because I couldn't fault Murphy's logic.

We entered the recreation room— a huge place with a big TV, several chairs, a couple of couches, a couple of big tables with kitchen chairs around them over on one side, probably for board or card games and _two_ fireplaces, one on either end of the big room. Michael nodded at me to sit in a big, comfortable-looking armchair near the closer fireplace, and I did, though I sat on the edge, too nervous to relax into it yet.

Once I'd sat down, Michael set Maggie down, and the girl took one hesitant step towards me before she stopped and looked at me searchingly.

"I _do_ know you," Maggie said, her voice small— but not frightened. "I remember you, I remember— you came for me! You fought _el monstruo, el Diablo! ¡Usted me ahorró!"_

"English, Maggie," Michael said in a very gentle voice. "I don't think Harry speaks and Spanish."

Maggie gulped air, her eyes, now flooding with tears, locked on mine and she said, "You came for me. You fought the monsters, the _devil_— and _you saved me!"_

With that, Maggie flung herself at me, her arms went around my neck, and she hugged me so hard that I could barely breathe— but I didn't mind a _bit_. I just hugged back as strongly as I dared, and when I felt her sob once, I said, "Let it out, Maggie. Let it out. It's okay to cry, it helps gets the bad stuff out."

She didn't let go of my neck, just started trying to climb into my lap as she started sobbing in earnest. I helped her, got her on my lap, then settled back into that big, comfortable armchair with my daughter in my arms, and I held her while she cried. I even cried some myself, for Susan, for the things Maggie had been through, and for myself, even.

It felt wonderful.

When Maggie's sobs tapered off, she wasn't asleep, to my surprise. She sat up, sniffled, and looked around for a box of tissues. Molly, whose own face had red eyes and a red nose, handed Maggie a whole box, and Michael set a small waste basket next to the chair we were sharing, then they both went back to an apparently animated conversation with Buffy and Dawn.

"Thank you," Maggie said gravely. "Thank you for saving my life. Thank you… Bill? Harry? I don't know if I should call you either one, but I don't know what else to call you."

"You can call me Harry," I sniffled, and accepted a tissue from the proffered box. I blew my nose, tossed the tissue, and asked, "Do you feel better, now?"

"_Sí,"_ Maggie said, then visibly caught herself and said, "Yes, thank you."

"You're welcome," I said. I smiled at her, broadened it when she smiled back, and said, "I feel better, too. Thank you."

"Can I ask you something, Harry?" Maggie asked, her eyes, dark and serious, locked on mine.

"You can ask me anything, anytime," I told her— then cut my eyes away from hers before a Soulgaze could start.

"Why did you come for me?" Maggie asked. "Why did you… you threatened the devil-man, and you fought… you fought all those vampires and all those men, and you… you could have died, like _Tía_ Susan did, but you did it anyway.

"Why did you do all of that for me?"

I froze. I had no idea what to tell her. And if she knew that Susan had died, she might know that I'd been the one to kill her. And she'd called her Tía Susan, Aunt Susan…. Yes, I'd killed Susan to save Maggie, to save us all, and to let Susan die before she became a complete, irredeemable monster, but could a little girl understand that?

"He did those things, Maggie," Michael said in a calm, level voice, "because he loves you."

"He doesn't even know me!" Maggie said, still watching me like a hawk. "How could he love me if he never even met me?"

"Because he's your father, Maggie," Michael said, his voice very gentle. "He knew you were his daughter, and he moved heaven and earth to save you— because he loves you."

I couldn't look at her. I stared down at my lap, wondered what Michael thought he was doing, and wished for something to say.

Maggie tilted my head up and asked, "Are you my father?"

"I… yes," I said, and it was like taking a ten ton weight off of my chest. "I'm your father, Maggie. You were named Margaret for my mother."

"Why… why were you going to be just Harry to me?" she asked, sounding a little hurt.

"Because I have enemies, Maggie, people and monsters who hate me— and who would use my daughter against me without a second thought." I gulped air, realized then that I was crying. "I can't protect you from everything, Maggie. I want to, I wish I could— but if I take you in, let the world know that you're my daughter, I'll be putting you in danger. Danger like the Red Court and the devil man, danger even worse than that.

"I want to have you in my life, I want to raise you as my daughter, but I love you too much to put you in that sort of danger."

"Oh." Maggie visibly thought about that, sitting on my lap still, but straight up, not leaning against me. Then she tentatively leaned up against me and asked, "Well… Michael and Charity, they are your friends?"

"They are some of the best friends I've got," I said slipping an arm around her as she leaned against me. "Them and Murphy, they're my best friends."

"Then if I stay here with them, I could see you?" Maggie asked. "I love them, and I love their kids, and they treat me like I belong with them. And… if it's just us, I could act like you're my dad when you're here?"

I sobbed at that, but managed to make words in the sob. "Yes, Maggie. That… that would be pretty much perfect."

"Then that's what we'll do," Maggie said— and wormed closer to me, hugged me _hard_ for a moment. Then she got up, went to the couch where Michael and Charity sat together, both watching us, leaking tears, and smiling broadly.

"Is that okay with you, Michael? Charity?" Maggie asked. "I do love you, and I do love being here, but I love Harry— dad— too. Can I stay with you still, and still be his little girl?"

"That's exactly how we want it, Maggie," Michael said, and reached out to pull Maggie close enough for him and Charity to hug.

"It's fine," Charity said, smiling. "It just means that we need to tell the other children, but they're very good at keeping secrets."

"All right," Maggie said. She kissed each of them on the cheek— then came back and sat down on my lap again. She looked up at me and smiled, then asked, "Are you a _brujo?"_

I laughed. "Yes, I'm a wizard."

"I thought so," Maggie said. "I thought I saw you doing magic before the devil man made you stop.

"Did you use a spell to bring the vampire slayer and her friends here to help you?"

That made me laugh, and I shook my head and said, "No, Maggie. I'm not sure yet how they got to where I met them.

"I take it you watched Buffy, sometimes?"

"Oh, yes," Maggie said. "I watched whenever I could.

"Where did you meet them?"

I sighed, shook my head and said, "I met them in the Nevernever— the land where the faeries and ghosts come from, as well as some other monsters. Wizards can go there, and some vampires and other things."

"Did you go there looking for them?"

"No, I…." I hesitated for a long moment, then looked at Michael with a helpless expression.

"Maggie?" Michael said, and she turned to look at him. "Maggie, to answer that, I think Harry would have to say something that might frighten you, and he's not ready to do that, yet. He hasn't known you long enough to know how tough you are."

"Oh." Maggie looked thoughtful, then leaned very close and whispered, "Dad… I know _Tía_ Susan was really my mother. I heard Papa and Momma Mendoza talking to her one night, and they were saying she should tell me. She said she could not, because of the monsters. The Red Court.

"And I… you won't be angry?"

"Huh?" I said, confused. Maggie looked at me, her eyes dark and serious, and about to overflow with tears. She held my gaze until I had to drop it to prevent a Soulgaze, waiting for an answer. "All right. All right, Maggie, whatever it is that you need to tell me, I promise, I won't be angry."

"I know that _Tía_ Susan— Mom— was turning into one of them," Maggie whispered, her voice barely carrying as far as my own ears. "I know that you… you kept it from happening. I know… you're sad and scared and not sure you did the right thing, and I know you didn't want to do it.

"But I also know that if one of them had bit me, had made me like them, I'd want someone to keep me from hurting people. I know she only wanted to hurt them— and she _did_ hurt them, because when she died, all the ones there died, and Michael, he says that all of them died, everywhere.

"She hurt them because you did what she'd have _wanted_. She _never_ wanted to be a monster."

I fell apart. I pulled her closer, and I fell apart. There were things she didn't know, things she should never know, but still, what Maggie had said made a tiny piece of the hurt I carried diminish. She didn't know, didn't understand, that I had _goaded_ Susan into killing Martin, her former partner in the resistance against the Red Court. Maggie didn't know that I'd _meant_ for Susan to kill Martin, that I'd put Maggie's life in front of Susan's deliberately. I hadn't been thinking about the spell on the altar they were using, the spell that would kill everyone in the bloodline of the next person killed on that altar, however many generations that might be.

I had just been thinking that if Susan went berserk and killed Martin, I might have a chance to save Maggie. The rest of it… just happened.

I wondered if Maggie could forgive me for that— but I didn't have the guts to tell her how things had happened and why.

When I finally got hold of myself, everyone but Maggie and I was down at the other end of the room, talking quietly and pretending that I wasn't down at the other end, crying like a baby.

Good friends I've got, you know?

"Thank you, Maggie," I said. I sighed and grabbed for the box of tissues, blew my nose, passed the kid the box and let her do the same. "Okay, you're tough. I get that. I'll tell you why I was in the Nevernever, but… kiddo, I'm not going to go into detail, okay? It's not because of you, Maggie— it's because I'm really not ready to talk about it myself."

"All right," Maggie said, and visibly focused her attention on me.

"After saving you and leaving you with Father Forthill, I went to a boat my friend Thomas owns to sleep," I told Maggie (I wasn't about to tell her that Thomas was my half-brother, not yet— because he was a White Court Vampire, and I didn't think she was ready for that). "I couldn't sleep, and when Karrin— have you met Karrin?"

"Yes, she's neat," Maggie said immediately. "She said that when she starts another aikido class for kids, I can go."

"That's a good idea," I agreed. "Anyway, Karrin came over, and we decided to go out for supper. She went home to get ready, I got ready, and when I went out on the boat's deck to wait for her… someone shot me, Maggie."

"With a gun!" she asked, her voice getting a little too loud.

"Yes, with a gun," I said. "I couldn't see who did it, they must have used a rifle and been a long way off. They shot me, and I fell in the water… and this is the scary part, Maggie, but I am here now, and very much alive, and I'm going to be careful, okay?"

"Okay." She looked at me, her eyes wide and serious, waiting for the rest of it.

"I fell in the water, and I… Maggie, I died."

She stared at me for a long, long moment, then asked very seriously, "Is it because you're a wizard that you got to come back?"

"No, kiddo," I said, and I gave her a big smile. "It's because of _you_."

"Me?" She looked puzzled and a little suspicious. "Are you just trying to make me feel better?"

"No, ma'am," I said. I grinned at her then and I said, "The short form of the story is that, a couple of years ago, an angel gave me a power called 'Soulfire.' It's not a common thing at all, and it can be used to make magic stronger, especially magic that makes things, creates things.

"The thing is, it runs off of my soul. If I use too much, well, I wouldn't have a soul. The good part is that you can replace bits of your soul that you use, really easily. All you have to do is something that makes you feel good— and if it's something that makes you and another person feel good, well, that builds your soul back up even faster.

"I almost used too much in that fight at the temple, Maggie. Almost— but not quite. Then sitting and holding you, letting myself love you for a little while, and trying to cram all the loving you that I could into not enough time? That built my soul all the way back up, and then it took it _past_ all the way back up, to where my soul was as strong as it had ever been, and then some.

"That's how I was able to come back, Maggie. The extra strength in my soul, the strength that I got from loving you? That made it possible."

"You left something out," Michael said. I jumped a little— he'd come right up beside the chair Maggie and I were in without a sound. "Maggie, Harry's trying to be modest— but I know that he did one other thing that also helped, something that was harder for him than all of the rest of that night put together."

I opened my mouth to tell Michael to stop— and Maggie put her hand over my mouth. She looked at me and glared, and for a moment, she looked so much like Susan when she was mad at me that I instinctively shut my mouth, and let Michael have his say.

"What was that, please?" Maggie asked, her hand still over my mouth.

"He let you go," Michael said, and squeezed my shoulder. "Harry knew that he couldn't protect you the way a father needs to protect his daughter, that you'd be in danger if he kept you with him— so he asked Father Forthill to find you a good home, and he let you go.

"I know how hard that was for him— and I am more glad than I can say that now, he will be able to be a part of your life.

"But that selfless act, that moment of putting the welfare of his daughter first, and never mind the pain it caused him? That was the thing that pushed his soul to the point where he could survive and return to the world."

Maggie took her hand off of my mouth, looked at me, smiled, and said, "Thank you for caring that much… Daddy."

Stupid tear ducts. They just won't leave me in peace….

A few moments later, when Maggie and I had both calmed down, the others came back over and sat around us again.

"Okay, Harry," Murphy said, giving me a hard look, "it's time for you to spill your—"

Someone knocked on the door of the rec room, and I smothered a laugh at the exasperated expression on Karrin's face.

"Yes?" Michael called.

Matthew stuck his head in and said, "Dad, is Maggie going to have bedtime waived tonight? It's eight-thirty."

"Ah," Michael said, a little smile on his face. "Maggie… I think you've had enough excitement for today. Bedtime."

Maggie sighed, but didn't press for more time— good girl. She stood up, leaned over to hug me very, very hard, then said very softly, "Good night, daddy."

"Good night, honey," I said, and squeezed her once more before letting her go.

Maggie gave Michael and Charity each a hug, then went off with Matthew, leaving us adults to talk.

"Okay, Dresden," Murphy said, "how'd you pull this off?"

I talked. I didn't mean to tell them as much as I did, and there were things I didn't tell them, things that were too personal, too intense, or just plain too painful. I gave them enough to let them know that it had been a long, hard, ugly road back, and that I'd never be able to do it a second time.

"Well, that's easy to solve," Will said, his voice solemn. "Just, you know, _don't die again,_ Harry!"

"I'll drink to that," I said, and raised my second can of Coke in his direction and did just that. "Now… Buffy's turn."

That got a general rumble of agreement, and we all settled down to find out how the Slayer, her sister and one of her best friends had managed to get into the Nevernever and close to our Earth.


	4. Chapter 4

"Okay, before I start," Buffy said, looking a little uncomfortable, "I sort of need to know what… what everyone here knows. About us, I mean. We haven't had a lot of time to just sit and talk, not even with Karrin, what with setting a watch on the places where Harry might come back, and digging up his grave, then putting it back during the daylight hours, and all that jazz.

"Harry said that we were a TV show, then a comic book about 'Season Eight,' so I'm guessing that the show was seven seasons… but what did it cover, and who among you have seen it all?"

"Okay, I'm the biggest Buffy fangirl here, I think," Molly said, "so let me try to answer this. But first, have all of you seen all of the show, or close enough to all of it to not need that briefing?"

"You may be the biggest fangirl here," Georgia said with her 'academician voice' and a sparkle in her eye, "but that's only because I have the excuse of a college education that allowed me to study the show and the effects of its message of female empowerment under the auspices of getting an education.

"Besides, it isn't like there's a lot of supernatural-based TV out there for those of us in the life to watch."

"All of us in the Alphas have seen every episode," Will translated. "And read most of the comics— we're buying them in trade paperbacks, mostly, and we're behind. Last one we got was the Time of Your Life arc."

"That's where I stopped, too," Molly said. She looked at her parents, and her eyes took on a wicked, wicked glean. "So, you've both seen every episode of the series, _I know,_ but you haven't read any of the comics, right?"

I raised an eyebrow at that. Michael just nodded, but Charity actually blushed a little. "No comics, Molly, because you keep forgetting to bring them to us," Michael said, and Charity's blush went for scarlet.

"Sorry, Dad, but I've been busy," Molly said. She looked at me and said, "Okay, Buffy, Xander, Dawn… the TV show covered from Buffy's first day at Sunnydale High up to the extended Scooby Gang looking out over the pit that had been Sunnydale, people asking Buffy what to do next— and you just smiling, Buffy. That was the last shot of the show— you smiling a little.

"The comics picked up a while later, and we've read up to Buffy going to the future and meeting the slayer there… so, you or me, boss?"

"Wait, the last thing you read was about Buffy meeting Melaka Fray?" Xander asked, and shook his head at Molly's nod. "That was five years ago, to us. It was 2010 when we… left our Earth."

"It's two thousand and ten here, too," Molly said. At Xander's puzzled look, Molly rolled her eyes and said, "Oh, come on! You're supposed to be a geek, Xander. _Comic book time!_ We get a couple of hours of your timeline in the comic one month, a couple days the next month, then maybe it skips ahead a year… comic book time."

"Oh, man." Xander covered his eyes in mock shame. "I can't believe… you got me, Molly."

"Molly, maybe you could catch your folks up as far as what you've read?" Buffy said, looking at my apprentice hopefully. When Molly half-cringed, Buffy visibly thought about it, then said, "Okay, yeah. Never mind that. Uh… Harry?"

"I can do that." I smiled a little crookedly, then said, "But in exchange, I want one guess at something we don't actually know, yet, so don't go on with the tale until I've had my shot."

"Deal," Buffy agreed, and looked sideways at Andi and Marci, sitting with their arms around each other, then looked at Michael and Charity, who had noticed but just smiled a little, and looked… relieved.

Oh. Right. She knew that Michael's family were deeply religious, so she had to have been worried, before Molly's parents casually welcomed two openly involved women, about their reaction to parts of her story.

"Short form;" I said to Michael and Charity. "About a year and a half after the activation of all the slayers, maybe a little longer, Buffy and her crew learned a couple of bad things; first, Amy Madison was back. Second, so was Warren Mears. Amy had saved him, teleported him away a second before Willow did, and she kept him going— though his heart obviously stopped at least once, since he appeared as the First Evil.

"They attacked Buffy and her slayers at their headquarters in Scotland, and managed to lock Buffy in a dream. Willow figured out how to get her out; someone who loved Buffy— romantically, no other way would do— had to kiss her. Willow determined magically that someone in the room at the time— there were a lot of people around— loved Buffy, and Willow killed the lights to save anyone any possible embarrassment, since Xander was the only guy in the room at the time. It worked, but the party in question made a mistake; unusually flavored lip gloss. Later, Buffy borrowed lip gloss from a slayer named Satsu— a very, very pretty Japanese girl and one hell of a talented slayer— and noted that Satsu used cinnamon flavored gloss, which she'd tasted when she woke up after being kissed. She filed it away.

"They then learned about an organization called 'Twilight' that intended to end magic, and that the United States Army and some other official types considered slayers a threat. They soon found out that Twilight the organization was headed by a guy who called himself Twilight, and who had some serious power at his fingertips. He came for Buffy while she and Satsu were cleaning out a vampire nest— and talking about Satsu's feelings for Buffy, which had become obvious." I slowed a little there, let Buffy look up and nod at me before I went on. "Buffy and Twilight fought to a standstill, pretty much. Afterwards, Buffy… the comic gave indications that Buffy was horribly lonely. She felt… cut off from even the girls she was leading, and it seemed… like she was kind of lost, to me, at least."

"I was," Buffy agreed, very quietly. "Lost, lonely… scared."

"While comic readers weren't shown how it happened, and I think that's none of our business, I think that it was that sense of loneliness, of being lost and scared, that prompted Buffy to… let herself be seduced by Satsu."

"That… was pretty much exactly it." Buffy blushed, but met my eyes for a second. "That comic must have had a hell of a writer and artist."

"It did. Does." I shook my head. "Anyway… stuff happened. Buffy and Satsu didn't stay a couple. Last comic arc Molly and I read, Buffy ended up in the future, fighting first beside, then against, the slayer of that era. That… she ended up discovering then that Willow had, sometime between her own time and the time two hundred years later, gone dark again… and stayed that way. Then… Buffy, I'm calling this like I see it.

"It looked to me like Willow manipulated Buffy into killing her. I don't know exactly why, but that's how it looked."

Buffy looked… horribly sad for a moment— but she nodded at me, just a little, letting me know that she agreed with my assessment.

"Right after that, present-day-not-Dark-Willow brought Buffy home," I went on. "Buffy… you were pretty obviously hurt and upset by what you had to do, and you were clinging to Willow and crying while Kennedy made a comment that sounded like it wanted to be jealous. Something about how she was watching both of your hands. Seemed kind of rude to me."

For a long moment, Buffy said nothing. She sighed, and moved to a chair facing most of the group, and coincidentally, next to mine. She sat stiffly, her hands locked together into a single fist and pressed tightly between her knees. She opened her mouth to speak, and I decided to get her mind elsewhere for at least a moment— though, honestly, I wasn't sure where I was going was better than where her mind seemed to be. But… I'm a detective at least partly because I'm _nosy,_ dammit! And I like being right, and she _had_ promised.

"Hang on a second, Buffy," I said, raising one finger. "Before you start telling us the things that happened after that, I have a guess— no, no, this isn't a guess, it's a logical deduction— to make."

"Go ahead," Buffy said, looking a little relieved, at least for the moment. "What are you deducing about?"

"Twilight." Buffy didn't look happy about that name, but she didn't look as upset as she had after I'd told her what I knew about her return from the future, either. "I think I figured out who he was."

"Go ahead," Buffy said with a nod.

"Angel. Or, maybe more likely, Angelus."

Buffy looked a mixture of sad and impressed, and she nodded. "How'd you figure it out?"

"Well, when he attacked you while you were trying to talk to Satsu," I said slowly, "there was a moment where you tried to split him from, uh, the groin up, with the Scythe." I tried not to look smug as I went on. "Twilight said, 'I know that move, slayer,' and that got me to thinking; sure, we only saw what amounted to bits and pieces of your life, but still… the only time that the audience had seen you do something like that— and why put it in the comic if the TV audience hadn't seen it— was against Caleb, the First Evil's psycho preacher. And the only person who saw the aftermath of that— thank you TV censors, just this once!— was Angel."

Now, Buffy looked a mixture of sad, impressed, shocked and mortified. She slapped her own forehead and said, "Oh, crap! How did I _miss that!_ I should've— oh, I'm stupid!"

"No, we're all stupid," Dawn said, reaching over and squeezing Buffy's hand while Xander shook his head in what I took for admiration— since he gave me a little salute after. "Buffy, we all missed… lots of things, at one point or another. Aren't you the one who liked to lecture me about how stupid blaming ourselves too much is?"

"Aren't you supposed to be the younger sister, here?" Buffy asked, giving Dawn a smile. "Okay, okay— but that… reminder, and the way a guy who wasn't even there saw it? Argh?"

I blinked at Buffy's 'younger sister' comment, and took a good look at the two of them. Buffy… I knew she was six years older than Dawn, but she certainly didn't look it, at least not if you ignored her eyes. She looked… well, if anything, Buffy looked closer to Dawn's age than Xander's. In fact, she really could have been the younger one, until you looked into her eyes and saw… wisdom of a kind that no one her age should have. Then, she seemed older. Like she'd seen too much….

Okay, wait. I'd seen some of the crap she had to deal with. She _had_ seen too much.

As for her appearance… apparently, the slayer power made her heal better than a normal person, like a wizard. That can keep you looking younger than you are; I really don't look thirty-five— thirty-six, my birthday had been while I was… gone, but I was going to count it anyway— myself, more like a slightly grizzled thirty, and my old mentor, Ebenezar, sure as hell doesn't look his more-than-three-hundred-years.

"Anyway," Buffy said with a sigh, leaning back in her chair a little bit. "Yeah. Okay. I got back from the future and… yeah. Yeah, Harry, Kennedy was sort of bitchy about how glad I was to see Willow, and I couldn't explain it, so… she got pretty convinced that I was all hung up on Wil. It didn't help that… well, for a good while, I couldn't stop myself from being more… touchy-feely with Wil. Which made Kennedy more bitchy, and… ugh."

Buffy sat silently for a moment, and we did her the courtesy of letting her. After a long moment, she took a deep breath and went on.

"After my trip to the future and back," Buffy continued, "we kept fighting the monsters, and going up against the Twilight organization whenever they made themselves felt. It was most of a year after my trip to the future when I met Twilight-the-guy again— and found out who he was and what he wanted. In that time, Dawn… got cured of her shape-shifting problems, and pretty much refused flat out to go back to Berkeley."

"I decided that I had a place in the whole slayer thing," Dawn said, looking amused at Buffy's faint scowl. "I told her that, sure, I'd go to school— in Edinburgh, or somewhere else close to her. She put up a fight, but Xander and Willow came down on my side, and I started school at the University of Edinburgh. Kept at it, too, got my doctorate in Linguistics, with a focus on ancient languages. Maybe I can use it to get a job, if we can find a way to get me accredited."

"Can you teach Latin?" I asked.

"Oh, sure," Dawn said. "I speak it with a Scots accent, though, be warned."

"My mentor in the wizard business was born in Scotland," I told her with a grin. "He'll probably get a kick out of me speaking Latin with a Scots accent.

"How about ancient Etruscan?"

"Slowly, and I'd need work on it, but yeah, there were some things written in ancient Etruscan that saved our butts a couple times, so I learned it," Dawn said, looking puzzled. "Why do you ask?"

"The White Council of Wizards uses Latin as its official tongue, and my correspondence-course Latin? Yeah, it sucks hard. As for the Etruscan, it's the official language of the White Court of vampires… and all the edge I can have when dealing with them? Not too much." I grinned at her. "If nothing else, I may hire you myself, just to teach me those."

Dawn laughed and nodded, and Buffy chuckled.

"Anyway… about a year after the return from the future, I finally came head to head with Twilight-the-guy again," Buffy said, relaxing at least a little bit more. "That… he tried to catch me alone, liked he'd caught me almost alone the time before. He botched it, though, and there was an audience of a couple of hundred slayers present when he came after me.

"I told them not to interfere. I knew that… well, if I hadn't done that, he'd have flown off again, and I'd be no closer to knowing anything about him, so I made the girls swear not to interfere with the fight, and I went after him. I was… I was so angry. Twilight-the-group had hurt or killed a lot of my slayers, and I was _furious_. I used that. Used it to sharpen myself, to get focused— and I went after him like… like I hadn't gone after anyone since… since I fought Glory, trying to save Dawn." Buffy looked around to make sure we all knew what she was talking about, saw no confusion, and went on. "We went at it for most of five minutes, and I think you all probably know that that's not as easy as it looks in movies and on TV. Twilight got a good shot in on me at the end of that five minutes— but at a bad time. He kicked me a good one in the gut— right after I got a handful of that stupid super-villain mask he always wore. The mask came off… and I was so shocked that Angel… he got a second really good shot in.

"Which is when Willow showed up. It had been just us slayers and Xander, Dawn was at school, and Wil… she showed up just like the cavalry. Only flying, not on a horse. And shooting spells, not arrows.

"Anyway, Wil caught me— Twilight had dragged me into the sky, he loved to fight up there."

I noticed that Buffy didn't call him Angel, but I let it slide. She'd loved him. Having to fight him gone bad again? It must have torn her apart. Calling him Twilight, a great way to distance herself a bit.

"Wil brought him down. Bound him magically. I started asking questions. I… assumed he was Angelus, that he'd lost his soul again. I was wrong. Willow knew how to check. He was _Angel_— and that nearly… I nearly couldn't handle it." Buffy drank off the rest of her Coke in one long swallow, then said in a shaky voice, "Oh, hell, I _couldn't_ handle it. I fell apart. Ran out of the room crying, outran everyone who came after me, just… ran for the hills. Didn't pay any attention to where I was going at all, and… and Willow caught me when I ran right off a cliff. She could fly faster than I could run, she'd come after me to be sure I didn't hurt myself… she caught me again…."

Buffy was silent for a long moment, so long that Dawn opened her mouth to speak— but closed it again when Buffy went on.

"I was in a terrible place emotionally." Her voice was low, filled with pain, but she kept going. "I'd just been betrayed by a man I'd been in love with since I was sixteen years old. I'd been lonely for a very long time, and… and here was Willow, catching me, saving me from myself, just like she'd done… I don't know how many times before.

"I kissed her. Hard. Not a friend's kiss, a lover's kiss, while we floated there in the air. Wil… she accepted it. Didn't return it, but… let me kiss her. Let me… have that moment. When I stopped, she said, 'Okay, that was… nice. But, Buffy, I'm… well, you know. Kennedy. I'm with Kennedy.'

"I apologized, and… and Willow let it go at that.

"Unfortunately, Kennedy had chased after both of us— and she saw what I did. She saw… she'd been suspicious for a while, and she thought she saw two lovers kissing. She thought Willow was kissing me back, not just letting me kiss her. She lost it. She went back and she'd packed up her stuff to leave when we got back. Willow went to their room and found her packing, and they… had a fight. A big one. In the course of things, it came out that Willow hadn't exactly been faithful to Kennedy, not… completely. There was this magical… lady, I guess, that Wil had been getting lessons from, and… well, having sex with. It came out while they were arguing about Wil's feelings for me, and… Kennedy slapped Willow and left. I was still… in shock over Twilight being Angel, and I didn't notice it. Didn't know about it until long after it was too late to stop her, to tell her that what she'd seen had been all me.

"Willow… Kennedy leaving her like that hurt her. Things were said that… well, I never would've forgiven Kennedy, if she'd said them to me, but Willow… forgave her instantly, felt that she deserved having those things said to her, about her….

"So, a couple days later, when I could think straight, when I could… stand to talk to Angel, I did. I went to the cell we had him locked up in, and I didn't go alone. I couldn't have—"

"And we'd never have let you if you tried, Buffy," Xander put in. He shook his head and added, "Angel… yeah. We couldn't have let you talk to him alone. It would have been cruel."

"Thanks, Xander," Buffy said. She leaned over and squeezed his arm briefly, then let go and squeezed her sister's hand for a moment. "If not for you two and Willow, I don't know if I'd have been able to hold it together long enough to find out what was going on." She looked back at me and the Carpenters, and said, "Angel… had had his own problems. He'd been sent to Hell— along with all of LA— for a while. Did you… was there a show about Angel? Or a comic, or…."

"Both," I said, trying to be… well, gentle. "The show ended with him and his friends being attacked by insane numbers of demons after killing off… Molly?"

"The Circle of the Black Thorn," my apprentice said immediately. "The comic picked up with him and his group being pulled into hell by the Senior Partners of Wolfram and Hart, and… I have through him getting out and reality being reset after."

"Well… a while after that, the ghost of his friend Wesley came to him," Buffy said, rubbing at her eyes briefly. "Wesley told him that, since Wolfram and Hart hadn't been able to punish him how they wanted, they were setting me and mine up— big time.

"Wesley told Angel that Willow and I had completely screwed up the balance between good and evil by activating two thousand slayers, and that Wolfram and Hart had found a way to shift it back the other way— give evil an edge. Angel wanted to come to me, but Wesley told him that they'd know that he'd gone to Angel if he did that, and then Wesley couldn't keep spying on Wolfram and Hart for him.

"Wesley offered a counter-plan, one that he said was the only way to stop Wolfram and Hart. He told Angel what he'd have to do, and how to go about it, and… and Angel agreed. Because he loved me, he agreed. He agreed to attack me and mine, to 'keep us busy,' while he set up an organization that would be able to accomplish his real goal; abolishing all magic in the world. That way, my girls and I would be no threat, and Wolfram and Hart would be banished forever, too. Angel, Wesley said, might die… or might be made human again.

"I think that was why he fell for it. That little bit of… uncertainty, there. He might die. He might be human. That made it… real. The risk made it real, made it believable. Risk, and possibility of reward.

"I like to think that that's the only reason that Angel fell for what amounted to the same trick twice. I like to think that that's how he let the First Evil fool him. Again."

"Merciful God," Michael said softly. He shook his head in something that looked to me like rueful admiration. "That… I have to admire it, much though it galls me. That's just… _brilliant_."

"I take it," I said, nodding my agreement with Michael, "that there was some sort of trick in the process, something that would depower the good guys and not the bad?"

"Oh, yeah," Buffy said, nodding. "Dawn saw it when she looked over the ritual he'd been planning to enact, and Willow didn't even look, just named the ritual, and said, 'Yeah, that could work. Or it could be set to work only on either the white or the black magic in the world, Angel. And I'll bet the way they wanted you to set it up? Would have killed all the white magic.' "

Again, Buffy was silent for a little bit, this time long enough that Molly got up and got fresh drinks for everyone. After she'd opened her can and taken a drink, Buffy sighed and said, "Angel… felt horrible, naturally. He agreed to give us all he knew about Twilight-the-Organization, and to help us stop them. He gave us a lot of stuff, and… after a few days, we decided to attack a major Twilight base. We went, we attacked, we pretty much won… but they… they'd been prepared for Angel maybe changing his mind. Warren… Warren created a tiny little bomb that… that detonated when Angel tried to kill Amy. It… it was in Angel's heart, and he… I had to watch him dust.

"The last thing he said… was my name."

I found something else to look at for a moment, as did Molly and her parents, and everyone else, giving Buffy time to gather herself. We didn't look back until she continued.

"We wiped them out. Twilight. Didn't kill the soldiers, but the demons? And Warren and Amy? Gone. That… well, I was tired after that. Sick-tired. I wanted a rest. Needed one, even. So, I took one. Went to the Bahamas for a month. I asked the others to come with me. Xander, Dawn and Willow, I mean. Only Willow came with me, Xander decided to stay and watch over the other slayers, and Dawn needed to get back to school. So… Willow and I went to the Bahamas for a month.

"The last week we were there… we ended up making love. And it… was a relationship, by the time we went back to Scotland. I… she'd been my friend for so long, and… it felt right. I trusted her, knew I could trust her in a way I'd never known about anyone else I'd been in love with. Xander approved, Dawn approved… it felt right. It felt like it would be forever. It did last for… years.

"Until Simone Doffler, a slayer who'd gone rogue and taken some girls with her, sent us Kennedy's body."

I drew in my breath sharply, Michael sighed, Charity compressed her lips and shook her head, looking sad, and Molly said softly, "Oh, damn."

"Kennedy had joined Simone and her crew," Buffy said, her voice near breaking. "She'd been with them for years, helped them hide from us, helped them do their criminal jobs… and she decided that she was better than Simone, after a while. Challenged her for the leadership of the group. Simone killed her in the challenge. Filmed it. Sent a copy with the body. Willow saw it, played it before we could stop her.

"Willow… lost it." Buffy swallowed hard, shook her head, wiped at her eyes, and said, "I knew… she loved me, I knew that. But I also knew she'd never stopped loving Kennedy, never stopped regretting what happened between them.

"She lost it, screamed so loud it shook the ground… and flew off. We tried to track her to figure a way to go after her… our Wiccans figured it out… too late.

"We got there in time to see Willow snap Simone's neck with her bare hands— and throw her body at the slayers who were coming to take revenge for their leader hard enough to kill three of them.

"I tried to stop her. Xander tried. Dawn tried. We all tried, and… it was too late. That second loss, the loss of Kennedy after the way they'd parted…."

Buffy didn't speak for a long, long moment. When she did, her voice was flat and hard— but you could hear the hurt underneath. Hell, you couldn't miss the hurt.

"Willow went totally dark. I… she wouldn't listen to me, to any of us, said… said things that hurt, and… and she flew off. The last thing she said before she flew off was, 'this time, I'll get it right.' I was afraid— we were all afraid— that she meant destroying the world.

"I couldn't think of what to do. I couldn't think of an answer— until we were back in Scotland. Then I got it. We still had the ritual that Angel had been going to use, the one that could get rid of all black magic, all white magic… or all magic, period. No magic? Nothing to keep Willow Dark, nothing to fuel her addiction. She'd be okay, and… maybe she and I could be… what we'd been before Kennedy was killed."

"But… but your slayers?" Molly said. "What about all of them?"

"They wouldn't be needed," Buffy said with a shrug. "No magic, no monsters. I sent home all those who could and would go there. The rest stayed with us, to help defend us, because… well, the ritual was a long, ugly one.

"It was bad. I… Willow never showed up to stop us. I think… I think she maybe fled to a different dimension, which could explain how she survived to be in Melaka Fray's time."

"However," Xander said, his voice dry, "Everything else that could teleport, hop, fly, run, crawl or— in far too many cases— ooze their way to where we were doing the working? They came to stop us. It's a good thing that we had several dozen slayers for guards. Those girls…" He raised his Coke to the air and said, "It was their last fight as slayers— and they fought it like champions."

We all sipped a toast to that, and Buffy finally continued.

"At the end, I'd forgotten one thing," she said with a sigh. "The other slayers, their power came from the scythe, and it didn't involve death for anybody to get it. But my power? The original slayer power? It's bound to me while I'm alive, and, maybe, given my history, even after I'm dead.

"So towards the end of things, there, as all the magic got sucked out of the world… I got pulled towards the portal, too."

"I couldn't let that happen," Xander said, nodding at Buffy and smiling. "I'd spent my whole adult life and a good part of my adolescence watching her back. I couldn't just abandon such a lucrative career, so… I grabbed hold of her, tried to hold her on our world."

"And I grabbed her and Xander, since I wasn't letting either of them go," Dawn said. She pouted just a little, a surprisingly attractive expression, and added, "Of course, the portal that was sucking up all the magic had… other thoughts. We all three got sucked in."

"We found ourselves in the craziest forest you ever did see," Xander said. "Something right out of… I don't know what, but something _epic_. Trees so tall their tops got lost in the clouds, so big around that you could mistake them for mesas… it was gorgeous, but also? Scary and dangerous. We got attacked ten minutes after landing there— by what I am reasonably willing to state was a freaking jabberwocky."

"That was ninety-plus days ago," Buffy said. "We saw nothing even remotely human in those ninety days, or anything that seemed to not want to either kill us or run away from us. Until yesterday, when Harry showed up and helped us fight off some big, ugly, yeti-looking things.

"And that's… the shortest form I can give you, and maybe, for now at least, the longest, too.

"So… what happens now?"

"For now," Murphy said, stretching and yawning, "You three stay with me. I've got the room, since Dawn and Buffy are okay with sharing a room.

"We'll figure out what comes next soon— but right now? I want a day off. Or two."

"Harry, we have a guest room in the basement of the addition," Michael said, smiling at me. "Very comfortable, has its own bathroom, and is far enough from breaker box and water heater that you should be comfortable and not cause any troubles. It's yours for as long as you need it."

"Thank you, Michael," I said with a sigh of relief. "I appreciate that more than I can say."

"And it lets you be here near Maggie for a while," Charity added. She gave me a little, knowing smile, and added, "That will be good for both of you."

"Oh!" Murphy said, and stood up. She patted her pockets, then said, "I'll be right back. I have something for you, Harry, but in all the hubbub, I forgot it— it's in my coat."

Murphy went out to the foyer of the house, and came back with a sealed manila envelope that had been curled to fit in a pocket and left there for some time, by the look of it. She held it for a moment, looked at me, and said, "It came in the mail a couple of days after you vanished, a small package. The return address was the hotel room where Susan had been staying, Harry."

I felt my face go numb, and said, "Oh. What…?"

"Just this, and a note asking me to give it to you when I saw you next," Murphy said, and handed me the envelope.

There was something besides paper in there, more than one something, even, and at least one of those somethings was a key on a ring. "Thanks, Karrin. I'll… open it later."

"Okay, Harry." She stepped forward and hugged me, and looked around at the others. "Thank you, all of you, for your help and good graces. I'll see you all soon. Will, let me know if anything comes up, will you?"

"Yeah, I will," he agreed. He looked at me and gave me a grin. "We've been taking up your slack while you were out of the game, Harry. And you know what? We got good at it, and we like it.

"But if you want to join the Justice League of Chicago, we need someone to play Plastic Man!"

"Hey!" I said, and thumped him lightly on the arm. "I'll be the Phantom Stranger, thanks. Or Green Lantern."

"Plastic Man," Will said firmly. "Now, if you'd come back in the lake, we'd have maybe given you Aquaman, but as it is… Plastic Man."

"Oh, bite me!" I said, and shook his hand. "We'll talk."

I got hugged and my hand shaken, and more hugs, and people drifted out. Michael led me down to the guest room in the basement, told me once more how good it was to have me back, and left me alone with the envelope Murph had given me.

It had my name on it in Susan's sloppily elegant scrawl. For a couple of minutes, I just looked at the envelope— then I opened it and read the last communication from a woman I had loved….


	5. Chapter 5

Inside the envelope was a thick sheaf of papers with a cover sheet that said "Last Will and Testament of Susan Angela Rodriguez," three sets of keys on three rings, an envelope, and a single sheet of paper that said in bright red marker, "Read this first!"

So I did.

It was short, simple and said _Harry, if you're reading this, I'm dead— but that's not the worst fate in the world for me, and you know that better than I do, maybe. No guilt, Harry. I knew it was coming, and if I saved you and we saved Maggie?_

_Everything came out perfect._

_Now, read the letter that's… sort of my personalized version of my will, then do something for me?_

_Be as happy as you can be, Harry. Accept the gifts I'm giving you, and be as happy as you can._

_Do that for me, okay?_

_Oh— and I made some arrangements with Leah. For a scary-faerie lady? She's not so bad. She understood what I wanted and agreed to it, __promised to do it__— for your good, Harry._

And it was signed just "Susan."

I sat and I shook for a few minutes, then picked up the envelope, labeled with my name and the date… the date was for the day Susan had called me and told me that we had a daughter, and that the Red Court had kidnapped her. I opened it and read it.

_Dear Harry,_

_This is not the easiest letter in the world to write, but one thing has made it easier; I have already told you about Maggie, our daughter. That was… well, I've done a lot of hard things in the years since I saw you last, Harry. That was the hardest of all of them. Even now, as I write this aboard the plane that brings me back to Chicago, I feel so much lighter for having that one lie-by-omission out of the way._

_You are almost certainly angry with me over never telling you about her. I hope that you don't hate me— but I can't say I'd blame you if you did. By now, you know why I did things the way I did, whether or not you agreed with me. Maggie would have been a weapon against me, and she would have been a weapon against you. Neither of us could give her a sane, healthy life, so I gave her to Javier and Juanita Mendoza to raise. They are— were— good people. The Red Court murdered them and their own children when they took Maggie, and that's a weight that I'm going to carry for the rest of my life._

_Never mind. Harry, this is not about the past, it's about the future. A future that, in any scenario I can come up with, doesn't have me in it. So… a few things._

_Harry, I'm stinking-stupid rich. You may not have seen them (I think you'd know that I'd written them if you had), but I've written and published seven novels since I left Chicago and joined the Order of St. Giles— and damned if they weren't big sellers. I drew on my experiences in the war against the Red Court for them, and they got huge fast. In fact, the first three have been optioned as movies, the first one comes out only a month from now, and if it performs as expected, I'm going to be __filthy__-stinking-stupid rich._

_Regardless, I've got oodles of money. Only I'm dead if you're reading this, so… it's more like Maggie has a trust fund that, when she turns eighteen, will make her rich… and you're rich now._

_I can hear you snorting at the idea of me leaving you money, and I can see you planning to give it all away, or funnel it all into Maggie's trust fund, and I'm going to ask you not to do that, Harry, because… because leaving you the money and the other things I'm leaving you, that's the only way I have to make up for the horrible mistake I made all those years ago… when I didn't listen to you, when I used your invitation to Bianca's ball to forge one for myself, and got myself made into a monster._

_If I hadn't done that, you, Maggie and I? We might be a family now. We might be what I wish with all my might we had been._

_Since I can't have that wish, Harry, grant me this one; take the damned money, use it for yourself, and do your best to be happy! Accept the money and the… other things I'm leaving you. Use them. (I expect the smaller gift not to be used anytime soon, but eventually, the Blue Beetle will die, and this way, you have an alternative.)_

_Be happy, Harry Blackstone Copperfield Dresden— or so help me, I will haunt you for the rest of your life, and scare off any potential girlfriends you might ever have!_

_I love you, Harry._

_Susan_

So I read that, and I sat on the bed and I cried some more— and I looked at the key sets. One was plainly house keys, only there were a lot of them, and that keyring was labeled with an address only about eight or ten blocks from my old office building. One had a trio of identical keys on it, and I thought they looked like car keys, only old ones. And the last… the last was a single key on a ring from a storage facility in Evergreen Park, a very nice suburb of Chicago.

I was too tired to look at the will, and too upset. I put everything on the nightstand, debated for a moment, then decided on a second shower. After I came out, I decided to glance at the will— and found a note under the cover sheet that said, "The keys are to things already in your name. (Hey, I'm a reporter, I know criminals who can forge little things like your signature, Harry!)"

I snorted, put the will aside, and reached for the lamp to turn it off.

Next thing I knew, it was morning, and someone was knocking on the guestroom door. I asked who it was, and Michael answered, so I told him to come in.

"Good morning, Harry," Michael said, and tossed me a big plastic bag from a big and tall men's clothing store. "With it being close to Christmas, the stores are open ridiculously early, so I was able to get you a couple of changes of clothes. Merry Christmas, early, and if you argue, you have to argue with Charity."

I glared at him, then chuckled and said, "That's cheating, Michael."

"Really?" Michael said, deadpan. "It's funny, but that's exactly what Sanya says when I tell him that. I guess I'll have to think about that."

"How is my favorite Russian agnostic wielder of one of god's own swords, anyway?" I asked. "I owe him a couple dozen favors for helping me get Maggie away from Chichén Itzá."

"Sanya's fine," Michael said, smiling a little. "He's currently in Italy, dissuading some White Court vampires who want to step into the power vacuum left when the Red Court died."

"Good on him," I said, nodding my approval. "Okay, I'll be up as soon as I'm dressed, Michael."

"Don't dawdle, or Molly will eat your breakfast."

I didn't dawdle. I hadn't actually eaten since coming back, which Charity seemed to have taken into consideration; she put plates of food in front of me that simply boggled the mind. Piles of fluffy scrambled eggs with cheddar cheese all through them, enough bacon to harden my arteries in a single glance, a second plate that had heaps of hash browns on it, as well as a couple of stray slices of bacon, and a half a dozen homemade biscuits. No one else was in the kitchen but Michael and Molly, so Charity felt comfortable with threatening me if I didn't clean my plates.

To my surprise, I did clear the plates, and drank two glasses of milk and one of pineapple-orange juice.

"Oh, man," I sighed when it was over. "Charity, if you ever get tired of being a housewife, I'll invest if you want to open a restaurant. Thank you, I needed that, and it was great."

"You're welcome," Charity said, and whisked away my plates. "The children are all off at school. This is the last day before Christmas vacation. What are you going to do today?"

"Well, after I tell Michael to go to work, instead of hanging around to see if I need anything," I said, grinning at my friend, "I'm thinking I'll ask him to drop me off on his way to work, if it's not terribly far out of his way. If it is, I'll be asking to borrow cab fare."

"Where am I dropping you off?" Michael asked. "And why?"

I gave him the address, and he assured me that was only two blocks out of his way, so I told him about the letter from Susan.

"Apparently, I have things in my name— she did some forgeries, sounds like, though god only knows when," I said. "I think she bought me a building, and, from the sound of things, a car."

Michael blinked, and asked, "Where on Earth did she get the money?"

"I don't know, exactly," I said, getting up and rinsing my glass. "She said that she wrote a bunch of novels, all based on her fight against the Red Court, and that they sold like hotcakes. Also, I guess there was a movie out based on the first one, maybe around Thanksgiving?"

"Oh, wow!" Molly said, her face lighting up. "Susan wrote the book Red Runs the Night? That movie rocked! And it's still playing around here, Harry, you could see it. Also, I bought the book— I have it at home. She didn't use her own name for it, if that's it."

"Do you remember the name of the author?" I asked, curious.

"Yeah, it was H. D. Malcolm." Molly saw my eyes go wide and frowned. "H. D.— oh, wow, I never thought… Harry Dresden. What about the Malcolm? Is that significant, too?"

"My father's name was Malcolm Dresden." I swallowed hard, and felt Michael's hand land on my shoulder and squeeze. "She was probably hoping I'd see them and read them, but… I never did. Of course, I tend to buy used books, but I guess I just… never saw those."

"Well, now I know what to get you for Christmas," Molly said. She saw me open my mouth and said, "Or what to tell the Alphas to get you, since I already got you half your coat."

I closed my mouth and nodded my thanks. Michael was getting his coat, so I matched him, and we said our goodbyes and left, or started to. Molly asked if she could come with me, and, on reflection, I decided to go with that. After all, I had no staff, no blasting rod, and I wasn't sure what had happened to my shield bracelet or kinetic force rings. That left me with my silver pentacle necklace with its ruby center-stone, the one thing that had gone into the lands of the dead with me— and come back, as well. I could still do magic (and I could feel my magic, back at full strength now that I was home on Earth and rested and fed), but I'd be hampered by lack of foci— Molly wouldn't, so having her along, just in case, made sense.

We all piled in Michael's truck, and he found the address without a lot of hassle. It was a brownstone, and had, at some point in its past, been made into a combination residential and commercial space. It was six stories tall, and sat on a corner. The north side of the first floor looked like an office space, big glass windows and a big empty space behind them, suitable… well, for an office for, as example, a private investigator whose former office building had been blown up by a bunch of pissy vampires.

There was also a side entrance, and it looked to lead to a secure foyer and an elevator and a staircase only. Molly and I walked up— and found that the second floor had been converted to one very big apartment, with multiple bedrooms and bathrooms, a big kitchen, even a dining room.

The third through fifth floors were two apartments each, and the sixth was another big single apartment. Molly and I walked through the place, and found nothing unusual, exactly— except for the basement, which had a very nice, modern circuit box, way back in one corner, and you could see that it and the rest of the wiring had been moved. The water heater and furnace were both very large, and kind of ancient— but beautifully, even lovingly, maintained.

"Harry," Molly said, her eyes gleaming, "Susan had this place rigged _for you_— it's going to have fewer things to go wrong with it, because you're two stories from the circuit box, which is new, and I'll bet if Dad looks at it, he'll tell you it's a super-safe one. Also the furnace and water heater are so old that you may not mess with them."

"Yeah, I think you're right," I said, and found myself grinning, even though I was a little choked up. "Now, let's see… we didn't look around so much on the first floor— let's fix that."

Molly found what I thought had to be there somewhere; she went to one of the back rooms, opened a door, and let out this little sound of mixed surprise and appreciation. "Harry, come see this!"

I followed the sound of her voice, and found what I had, in general, been expecting. In general. The specifics were way nicer than I expected.

Molly had found the space at the corner of the building that had been made into a large, one car garage— and it was good that it was large, because the car that sat in the space was big— old-car big. It was long and wide, with a long nose in front of the passenger cabin, and big fenders and running boards, and it was painted a deep, dark, midnight blue. An envelope had been stuck under the driver's side windshield wiper, and I went and plucked it up, unsurprised to see my name on it in Susan's writing. I opened it, and there were two sheets of paper inside, one handwritten, the other a printout of some sort.

_Harry, I know you love the Blue Beetle,_ the note read, _but someday, even that valiant little bug is going to break beyond repair. When it does… well, this is a 1939 Packard. I think it'll run well for you. And it is blue!_

_Attached is a list of parts stores and qualified mechanics— you can't let just anyone work on a car this old. (And aren't you glad I left you lots of money to pay for it? Mechanics for old honeys like this don't come cheap.)_

_Oh, and you'll need to connect the battery before you start it._

"Wow," Molly said, running a hand along one of the car's highly polished fenders. "Harry, this is… it's gorgeous! I don't know cars, but I know gorgeous, and this is it!"

"Yeah," I said with a sad little smile. "I can't argue. But… I miss the Beetle."

"Well, I'll bet naming this one would help with that," Molly said with a little smile. "How about it?"

"I think you're right," I said. I walked around the car once, then stopped and found the hood release. The engine was huge, and it gleamed. I found the battery and managed to get it hooked up with only a few sparks savaging my hand, then unlocked the door with one of the three keys that had been on the ring with three identical ones. I leaned over and unlocked the passenger door, and Molly hopped in visibly marveling at the spacious cabin— even I felt comfortable, and I had headroom. "Well… okay, I think this looks like a garage key." I handed it to Molly and said, "Open the door for me— no opener, that's smart— and close it and lock it after I back out, please?"

Molly bounced out to do so, and I started the car once she had the door up.

(Well. I'll be honest. Once she had the door up and I'd figured out that the car didn't have just an ignition slot, but a starter button as well. Ooops….)

When she got back in, she was laughing hard, and I looked at her sideways.

"It has plates, Harry, and they're good until October of next year," Molly said, still laughing as she spoke. "But they're vanity plates; W-1-Z-4-R-D!"

"Wizard," I said with a laugh. "Okay, Susan— I get it, this is my car."

"He needs a name." Molly spoke as though the car's need should be obvious to anyone with a brain. "Come on, boss."

"Okay, well," I said, grinning a little, "It's midnight blue. So, I'm thinking… Captain Midnight."

Molly looked at me for a long moment, her mouth open— then she guffawed, nodded almost frantically, and managed, "It's perfect, Harry— because it's perfectly you!"

I grinned, and started driving for Evergreen Park and the storage facility that Susan had left me a key to.

At the storage facility, Susan had rented one of the smallest units they had— a six-by-ten foot thing. When I got the garage-style door up, I was surprised as hell, and I glanced around to make sure that no one was nearby and could see into the place.

It didn't have a lot of stuff in it, just a half a dozen crates of various sizes, a small, two-drawer filing cabinet… and racks full of machine guns on each of the three walls.

"Whoa," Molly said, stepping in and looking around. "Uh, Harry, why are there so many guns here?"

"Susan left them, probably a weapons drop for when she and Martin were in the area and needed to kit up," I said. I looked around nervously at the crates, three of which were labeled as ammunition, one of which apparently contained freaking hand grenades, and one that contained, if the lettering on its side was to be believed, a flamethrower, and I said, "Molly, keep watch for me, please? I want to see what's in the filing cabinet, but I don't want to be arrested for taking the time to do it, you know?"

"Okay, Harry," Molly said, and stood a couple of feet outside the door, her head turning slowly and steadily from side to side.

It didn't take me long to get the cabinet open— it was locked, but the smallest key on the ring of house keys opened it. The top drawer held three file folders, one labeled "titles and deeds," one labeled "MAD Trust," and the last labeled "Agent and Lawyer." A quick check of the first got me the title to the car (and an insurance card— Susan had thought of _everything_), the deed to the brownstone, and a rental agreement for the storage facility, which had been opened three years before, and was paid through the end of December of 2013. To my relief, the storage facility was in the name of John Martin, not my own. I mean, I couldn't use these weapons, and I wasn't sure how to get rid of them safely. But in three years, if I hadn't found something to do with the stuff, the owner of the facility would open it when the rent ran out, and call the police when he saw the contents. My money was that John Martin was one of the aliases used by Susan's former partner in the Order of St. Giles, and nothing could ever trouble Martin again.

The bottom drawer contained a single wooden box, hand-carved with elaborate scrollwork, and big enough that it barely fit in the file drawer. I lifted it out, surprised at the weight of the thing, and saw that the scrollwork came together in the middle of the lid to form the letters HD, and sighed. Susan and her gifts….

Inside the box was a pistol and several magazines, all loaded. It was decent sized, had some serious heft, and was made of metal— none of that plastic crap for me, thanks. In the lid was a little booklet that told me the gun was a forty caliber Beretta 96, and showed me how to disassemble and clean the gun. It also told me that the magazines held ten rounds each, and since each was loaded (including the one in the gun), that meant I had forty rounds. Which reminded me that I needed to get a new copy of my Firearm Owner's Identification card, god only knew what had happened to the last one, and I'd need it to buy more ammo sooner or later.

"Well," I said, taking the gun and putting it in the pocket of my duster, the magazines in the other, "at least Murphy can stop bitching about my packing a revolver, now."

Molly and I locked up and got out of there. I started to go back to the Carpenters', and Molly pointed out— without meaning to, I'm fairly sure— that I'm an idiot, sometimes.

"While we're driving around, maybe we should go by your bolt-hole, Harry," Molly said as I pulled onto the street from the storage facility.

"Why should I do that?" I asked absently— driving Captain Midnight was very, very different from driving the Blue Beetle, because the Packard was freaking huge.

"Well, you have a spare blasting rod there," Molly said. "You might need that, you know."

I glanced at Molly with my mouth open for a moment, then snapped my eyes back to traffic. "Molly, you're a genius. Seriously!"

She blushed a little but grinned a lot as I started for Deerfield, where I had made an emergency hiding place— a bolt-hole— out of a much larger space in a storage park. There I had to show my ID (and borrow five dollars from Molly) to get a new key, since the old one was presumably somewhere on the bottom of Lake Michigan.

Soon enough, I had my blasting rod in the inside pocket of my duster, and I felt a lot more like Harry Dresden, Wizard.

As we started back towards Chicago proper, I finally asked Molly a very important question.

"Molly, what happened to the staff Wizard McCoy loaned me?"

"He's got it back," Molly said. She looked sideways at me and smiled a little. "He didn't believe you were dead either, Harry. He refused to believe it. Also, he managed to get me free of the Doom and onto the actual Council. Then Captain Luccio offered me the Warden's cloak, and… well, Harry, I wanted to follow in your footsteps, so I took it."

"Flatterer," I muttered— but I was smiling.

"Captain Luccio refused to appoint a new Regional Commander, too." Molly snorted a little. "That sort of pissed off… well, everyone on the senior council except Wizard McCoy and Wizard Listens-to-Wind. But she told them that if they wanted to overrule her on that, she'd quit, and they backed down. So Carlos is running all of the United States."

"Carlos, huh?" I said, looking sideways at her. "Carrrrrr-loooooos?"

"Oh, hush!" Molly said, blushing brightly. Then she said, "Hey, can we run by my place? You should know where it's at, and there's something I want to grab there."

"Sure thing," I said with a nod. "Address?"

Molly gave me an address maybe three miles from her folks place, in a decent enough section of town, and I drove her there. There was no place to park, so she ran inside while I drove around the block once. Before she got in the car, she put a long, slender cloth-wrapped bundle in the back seat, and once she was seated beside me, she grinned at me and said, "Home, Jeeves."

"I'll Jeeves you," I muttered as I maneuvered back into traffic. "What's in the cloth?"

"Oh, that?" Molly said, her voice full of cheerful devilment. "That's just a piece of wood."

"What sort of wood?" I asked, curious. Molly had a couple of wands already, didn't seem inclined to go for a full-fledged staff.

"Oh, it's a nice, straight branch off of some lightning-struck oak tree out in the Ozarks somewhere…."

I grinned— then I laughed outright. "Ebenezar left it for me?"

"He did," Molly said, her smile matching mine. "He said you'd need a blank, and getting your blasting rod reminded me of it."

"That's a relief," I admitted. I sighed. "Even with a blank, it'll take me a couple of months— but I couldn't figure out how to get a blank without letting him know I was back, and while I trust him completely… I don't know. If I were the bad guys, I'd be keeping an eye on him as best I could. They might see me, and that… not in the plan."

"What is the plan, Harry?" Molly asked, turning towards me in the seat as much as the seatbelt would allow.

"It's a simple enough plan, Molly," I said, a grim little smile settling on my face. "I think the execution may be a pain, but the plan itself? Simple.

"I'm going to find the son-of-a-bitch that killed me, and if it wasn't a human being? I'm gonna pay them back in kind.

"If it was a human? I'm gonna turn 'em over to Murph. She's not a cop anymore, so she'll probably beat them stupid before she turns them over to the cops."

Molly just smiled her own hard little smile and said, "I like that plan. I'll help!"

I nodded at her, said, "Thanks, Molly," and we rode the rest of the way to her parents' house in a comfortable silence.


	6. Chapter 6

I pulled up in front of the Carpenter house— parking Captain Midnight in their drive would mean that Michael couldn't get his truck in to the drive— parked, and Molly and I went inside, me clutching the staff blank that my grandfather and former mentor had sent for me. We'd barely gotten inside before the kids started arriving home, and things got merrily chaotic. I greeted Maggie with a hug, and she asked about the stick I had. I told her it was going to be my new wizard's staff, and the next thing I knew, I was sitting at the kitchen table with her, listening to her tell me about her school day.

I found it entrancing— I mean, I practically hung on her every word. You wouldn't think that a third-grader's day would fascinate me, but since I'd never really gone to a normal school (nothing in an orphanage is normal— at least not to us orphans), I found it fascinating.

(Okay, it helped that it was Maggie talking, yes.)

Charity was bustling around the kitchen, making dinner for what I would have sworn was a small army, and when Maggie went off to play with the other kids, I asked if I could help. She put me to work cleaning and cutting potatoes for boiling and later mashing (she left the skins on— good taste, that), and asked me a question I hadn't really wanted to think about.

"Harry, you do know that the police will want to talk to you, don't you?"

"I know," I sighed, and reached for another potato to clean. "I mean, I vanished under mysterious circumstances, and I left blood behind… I'm not sure how I'm going to deal with that."

"Well, maybe Karrin can help," Charity suggested. "You should ask her this evening."

"Oh, she's coming over?"

"Yes, I invited her, Buffy and the others," Charity said. She looked amused for a moment, and said, "I don't think Karrin's much of a cook, so I thought I'd save everyone from fast food and invite them over.

"Oh, and before I forget, Harry— you will join us for Christmas dinner, at least?" She smiled and added, "And I hope you'll join us for the unwrapping of presents? I suppose that asking you to go to Mass with us would be a bit much, but you are welcome, if you want."

"Uh, well," I said, floundering a little bit. "I'd like to be there for the presents, and I know I will have some money to spend. So, yes, please— and definitely for the dinner.

"But… look, Charity, I would like to… well, contribute, and to more than just Maggie. I want to get things for all of your kids, and since you and Michael gave me the clothes I'm wearing, I want to get you two something, too. So if you could… well, make a list of suggestions, and give me an idea of the maximum you want me spending on the kids, I'd appreciate it.

"As for Mass… Charity, I'm just not ready for anything really spiritual yet. I know, that sounds insane, since I'm still packing Soulfire, given to me by an angel— I can feel it, it's different from my own magic— but it's true. I'm not ready to… open up that way."

"That's all right, Harry," Charity said with surprising equanimity. "But if you ever are ready, you will be welcome.

"As for the gifts… I can make you a list, and your contributions will be welcome.

"I'm thinking that you'd probably rather give the children fun things than clothes?"

"If possible, yes," I said, grinning. "I feel sort of like a kid myself, so I don't want to be giving clothes— except to the girls, if clothes _are_ fun to them."

"Only to Alicia, and she doesn't truly admit it." Charity smiled and shook her head. "But yes, I can make you a list— with options, even."

"Thank you, Charity."

"You're welcome." She put the largest pot roast I'd ever seen in the oven, then turned and smiled at me. "We are going to tell the children tonight about your relationship with Maggie— they know how to keep secrets, Harry— and that will allow you to spend more on her without anyone feeling slighted."

"You read my mind," I said, and started putting potatoes in the pot she put before me.

Dinner was fantastic— no surprise, I sometimes think that Charity's own long-suppressed magical talents manifest themselves in her cooking— and afterwards, I spoke to Karrin about how to "return from the dead" officially, and what to say to the police when I spoke to them. She gave me a wickedly merry smile, and said, "Harry, there is exactly one story that simply cannot be broken if you just stick to it— and it isn't like the trauma of being shot and nearly killed wouldn't make it possible."

"And that story is…?" I asked when she left it there.

Karrin put on a confused expression, spread her hands wide in a very emphatic shrug, and said, "I don't remember what happened. I got shot, I fell in the water— and the next thing I know, it's December and I'm standing on Murphy's doorstep in a pair of jeans and a t-shirt. No idea what happened between the two points, sorry."

I looked at her for a moment while I thought about it— then I laughed and shook her hand. "You're a genius, Murph!"

"Not really," Murphy said, and grinned. "I've just had that one used on me too many times."

After the kids had gone to bed, we adults sat down with various drinks, and I asked some questions that I hadn't asked yet.

"Karrin, what are you doing for a living?" I asked.

"Living off my savings and my retirement," she said with a sigh. "I haven't thought much about an actual job, yet.

"Of course, I've been fairly busy with helping Billy and the Alphas try to control the supernatural bad stuff, so I haven't had a lot of time to look for something, either."

I grinned, and said, "I have a proposition for you, Murph."

"Forget about it, Dresden, you're not my type," Murphy said automatically. She had the good grace to blush after, when she remembered that we'd been going to go out on a date with every intention of sleeping together, right before I died.

"Not that sort of proposition, Murph," I said, shaking my head. "Get your mind out of the gutter, geeze.

"Murph, I'm going to go back into the investigation business. And I could use a partner…."

For maybe the second or third time since I'd known her, I saw Murphy speechless. She sat and she stared at me for a long, long moment, then slowly stood up, walked over to me, and held out her hand. I stood, shook her hand, and said, "Welcome to the PI biz, sweetheart. It's not so glamorous as you might think, but the pay is lousy and the hours stink!"

Murphy laughed, nodded, and said, "Well, at least I can get a license without hassle, being a former police detective."

"Which brings me to another subject," I said, and turned to face Buffy and company. "You three are going to need ID. You're going to need backgrounds, and credit histories, and all that jazz. I think I can make that happen… but it won't be actually legal. I'm sure it'll stand up to examination, but it won't be obtained legally."

"What are you thinking, Dresden?" Murphy asked, her voice only a little sharp— she'd know we couldn't really do this legally.

"Lara Raith," I said with a sigh. "I hate to go to her, but… well, as a long-lived vampire of the White Court, she's going to know how to get false ID. I mean, she can't exactly claim her true age, not when she looks like she's in her early thirties at most."

"She's a few hundred years old, Harry," Murphy pointed out. "She couldn't claim her real age if she looked to be in her late nineties!

"You really think she can help?"

"Yes," I said, nodding. "And I think she will. She knows I know things she doesn't want made public, and there are… other considerations."

"Speaking of which, have you seen him yet?" Murphy asked.

"No," I admitted. I sighed, then said, "I was going to go by his place tomorrow, maybe, before I go see Lara.

"Buffy, would you be willing to come with me to see Lara Raith? She's a vampire, but not the sort you're used to, and I can almost trust her, for a certain limited value of the word 'trust,' at least."

"Sure," Buffy said with a shrug. "Might as well meet the enemy, right?"

"Right, but remember not to slay the enemy, since we're asking for her help," I said. Then I smiled and dropped the other bomb I'd been holding on to. "Oh, and Buffy? While we're forging you ID and credit history, how would you feel about having a PIs license forged, too— and coming to work for Dresden Investigations?"

Buffy gaped for a minute, then said, "Are you serious?"

"Very serious," I assured her. "You'd be an employee, not a partner, but I'd sure like to have you on the team."

"So would I, thanks for asking, Dresden," Murphy said, giving me a fairly mild glare.

"Quiet, you," I said in my best Bogey. "You're a junior partner, sweetheart, and don't you forget it!"

"I'm in!" Buffy said, jumping to her feet and coming over to shake my hand, then Karrin's. "Thank you!"

"Junior partner, huh?" Murphy snorted. "What, exactly, are you bringing to this partnership, Dresden?"

"How about a building with office space and living quarters," I asked her. "Oh, and a lot of money, the better to pay employees with."

"Wait, what?" Murphy said, giving me a suspicious look. "I figured you must've spent every penny you had on the antique in front of the house, Dresden, and gone into hock besides."

"No, Karrin," I said. I sat down, looked around, and told everyone there, "Susan Rodriquez left me a building that's got both office space and several apartments in it, as well as a car, and some amount of money that I'm not sure about yet, but that she assured me, in a letter she wrote before she died, was enough to make me rich."

"She… Susan was rich?" Murphy asked, looking surprised.

"She was," Molly said, leaning forward to catch Karrin's eye, and probably trying to help take some pressure off of me (for which I was very grateful). "You know that movie we went to with the Alphas, Karrin?"

"Red Runs the Night? Sure, I remember it." Murphy smirked a little and said, "It was surprisingly accurate in its depiction of vampires, all things considered. What's that got to do with Susan?"

"She wrote the book it was based on," Molly said. "And six others, all of which sold really well. Bestseller well."

"Oh," Murphy said, her face a picture of complete surprise. "Well, that explains the relative accuracy of the vampires, I guess. And why she had money to leave to Harry.

"Did she take care of Maggie, too?"

"Yes, but I'm not sure about the rules of the trust fund, yet," I said. I sat down and rubbed my chin. "Susan said it would mature on Maggie's eighteenth birthday, but if you and Charity need help with her expenses, Michael…."

"No, we're quite all right, Harry, but thank you," Michael said. He smiled a sad sort of smile, and explained, "The Church has a very large and very generous fund for caring for the orphans and widows left behind by… events that might require a Knight of the Cross. We get enough for caring for Maggie that we were thinking of setting the remainder of each month's stipend for her future. Now? I suspect we'll return it to the Church."

"No, I think you should put it aside for emergencies," I said immediately. "Like if she breaks an arm, or her appendix goes bad— no matter how good your insurance is, there's always some out-of-pocket expense."

"Good point," Michael said, and nodded. "Thank you, Harry.

"Now, while we're on the subject of money and jobs… Xander, I could use an experienced worker who knows framing or electrical work for residential and commercial building construction. Are you experienced with either?"

"I've done both, actually," Xander said, a hopeful look on his face. "Whichever you need most, I'll do. I mean— if Harry's ID forger could maybe arrange for my certifications, I'll do it."

"I'm sure that any forger that works for the Raiths can manage it." I looked over at Dawn and said, "Speaking of which, degrees? You'll want those, I'll bet."

"Yes, please," Dawn said immediately. "There are museums in town, I'll bet I can get a job at one of them, as well as teaching you and Molly Latin, and you ancient Etruscan."

I grinned and nodded, then said to all three Scoobies, "One more thing… the building Susan left me has a total of eight apartments, two very large, the other six only large. I think that if Dawn plays teacher, Xander helps with the maintenance and Buffy gets an employee discount, I can maybe offer everyone discounts on rent.

"You can all live together in the top floor huge place, or you can all have individual places, or whatever— but you'll get very reasonable rent, however you do it."

"You got yourself a maintenance man," Xander said with a grin, and he practically bounced over to shake my hand.

"And a teacher," Dawn agreed, and matched him.

"And an employee who, while she may be only barely decent as a detective, is great at 'beat up that monster, would you,' " Buffy said, and she, too, came over to shake my hand. "You're a generous man, Harry Dresden."

"Nah," I said with a little smile. "I'm just a guy who pays his debts. You guys made it possible for me to come back without… without either dying again or going through the kind of struggle that… well, Buffy, you understand. I don't think Dawn or Xander could, really."

"No, and I hope it stays that way," Buffy said, shuddering as she remembered her own trip back from the grave.

"Seconded," Dawn said, and squeezed Buffy's hand.

"Motion carried," Xander said, and hugged them both briefly. "Okay, so… Michael, you need me to start tomorrow?"

"Please," Michael said, nodding. "I can pay you off the books for a few days, until you have the ID and certifications needed, and I can pick you up at Karrin's house, it's on the way."

"Awesome," Xander said, grinning.

"Harry, what if Lara can't or won't help?" Murphy asked.

"Then I go to the other enemy that I— entirely against my will— have some respect for." I snorted and added, "And don't you dare tell him I said that!"

"Marcone," Murphy groaned. "I hate to say it, but I hope Lara will help you."

"Me, too," I agreed.

Everyone took off about eight that night, and I found myself with nothing to do— Maggie was doing homework, probably would be until bedtime, the other kids had their own pursuits, and Michael and Charity were watching a movie that didn't interest me. Since Michael had given me a house-key earlier in the day, I decided to go and see my half-brother Thomas now, rather than in the morning. I told Michael and Charity that I was going out, and would be careful to be quiet if I came in late, hugged Maggie and told her goodnight, and went off towards Thomas's apartment on Chicago's "Gold Coast." He'd abandoned it for a while after… after an enemy of mine had tortured Thomas so thoroughly that he'd lost control over the demon that made him a vampire of the White Court, and largely become a monster. I hadn't seen much of him between that time and when he came to help me get Maggie back, but I knew he'd taken his old apartment back, so I drove there.

I went in to his building with the key he'd given me, showed it to the guard at the security station, he checked their records and found that I was an authorized visitor, and waved me towards the elevator. I rode to Thomas's floor, strode down to his door, heard the sound of a TV, and knocked.

Justine opened the door, and she was wearing short sweat pants and a belly t-shirt. Justine, whom Thomas loved, and who loved him back— and whose touch was anathema to the demon in my brother. She shouldn't be here, and certainly not dressed so scantily.

Her mouth fell open, and soft, indecipherable sounds came out.

After a moment, I heard my brother call, "Justine? Who is it, sweetheart?"

Justine made some more quiet little sounds, then managed, "Thomas, you'd better come see!"

My brother came at a fast walk, I could hear it— though I'd have expected him to move at the blurring speeds a White Court vampire is capable of. He stopped beside Justine— and stared at me himself, his mouth open too.

And he put his arm, his _bare_ arm, uncovered below the short sleeve of his T-shirt, around Justine's mostly-bare waist. I saw skin-to-skin contact. He should have been burned, but nothing happened.

"Holy crap," I said, staring. "You're not burning!"

"You— you're dead!" Thomas said in reply. "I know you're dead, she could _not_ have been mistaken!"

"Who is—" I started to ask— and a memory exploded in my mind, a memory of a conversation with Mab, the Queen of the Winter Fey, who had long wanted me to be the Winter Knight, her mortal emissary and tool. I'd refused yet again, at the end of the Small Favor case, and she had said that she might tire of asking me, and approach my brother. I'd said I thought the Winter Knight had to be a mortal, and Thomas was a vampire.

"He is in love," Mab had said with that self-satisfied smile I so loved to hate. "That is more than mortal enough for me."

"Oh, man," I said, my heart dropping for my shoes. "You're the Winter Knight."

"Yes, and you were," Thomas said. He looked at me suspiciously. "The power came back to Mab when Harry Dresden died— so you aren't Harry Dresden."

"Is that any way to talk to your brother?" I asked, and gave Thomas the best smile I could under the circumstances. "It's me, Thomas. I died, but… there were circumstances that made it possible for me to come back. Just this once, and it was one hell of a long way from easy— but possible."

"I… want to believe you," Thomas said slowly. "But I won't invite you in."

"Fair enough," I said— and stepped in as he and Justine stepped back. I felt that vast majority of my power leave me, and hang there in the mystical barrier of the threshold to my brother's home. "There. See? Not a vampire, a ghost or a shape shifter. Happy now?"

"My god," Thomas said, his face slowly growing a smile. He hesitated one more moment, and asked, "What did you get me for my birthday that you never actually got to give me?"

"Rock-em-Sock-em Robots," I said immediately. "Because I wanted to give you something that brothers could do together, that I used to dream of doing with a brother when I was a kid.

"And just in case that doesn't do it, take a look at this." I pulled my necklace, left to me by my mother, just as she'd left a nearly identical one for Thomas.

"HARRY!" Thomas yelled, and jerked me into a bear hug. "YOU'RE ALIVE!"

Justine had closed the door, and I was glad— this place had the kind of sound proofing you expect when your monthly rent is more than most used cars, so no one would have heard that.

There was hugging, and back-thumping, and more hugging for Justine, and finally, we sat down to talk. I told them as much as I could about my trip back, and Thomas told me that Mab had come to him the day he'd come back to Chicago, and asked him to be her Winter Knight.

"I refused, of course— until she told me that, to make me her Knight, she'd first have to make me a mortal." Thomas took a deep breath, and pulled Justine, who was sitting against him with her head on his shoulder, a little closer. "I realized what that meant, and… I accepted.

"Please, Harry— don't tell me it was a bad idea."

"I couldn't," I said, nodding at him. "Not without being the biggest hypocrite I know. I did it for Maggie, you did it for Justine. I get it, Thomas."

"Thanks," my brother said, and turned to kiss Justine's temple.

"A couple things, though," I said, and took a breath. "If the Queen doesn't actually ask you, can you just not tell her I'm back?"

"So long as she doesn't ask, and you aren't a threat to her, yes," Thomas said.

"Okay, and thanks," I said. Then I caught his eyes, held them (no danger of a Soulgaze, we'd done that years ago, and they are one to a customer), and said, "One thing that my former mentor as a wizard told me when he found out I'd accepted the mantle of the Winter Knight, that I think you could stand to hear, Thomas."

"Tell me," Thomas said, his face impassive.

"She can't take away your will," I said slowly and emphatically. "She can make it seem that way. That's one thing she can't do— she can't take away your ability to choose, Thomas. She can make you do things, she can kill you if you refuse— but she can't make you _choose_ anything. She'll try to lie to you about that— don't let her."

My brother relaxed, looked thoughtful for a moment, then nodded and said, "Thank you."

"No problem," I said, and leaned back in my chair. "How did Lara take it?"

"Not so well. I'm persona non grata. Again." Thomas smiled at me, a truly happy smile, and said, "She thinks that's a punishment."

I laughed and said, "Well, yeah, she would." Then I thought about that for a moment, and sighed. "She know I died?"

"Yes," Thomas said, simply.

"Hells bells," I sighed. "Okay, option two."

Thomas looked at me and cocked his head in question.

"I was going to go to her for some help with fake IDs for Buffy and company."

Thomas smiled again, and said, "I can help you with that, Harry— on the condition that you promise to bring them by sometime— in fact, maybe I'll have a little New Year's Eve party after all. Just you, them, Justine and I? And maybe Karrin Murphy? Molly?" His grin grew wider and he added, "Mouse, even."

"Sounds like a plan," I agreed, chuckling. "Thanks, Thomas."

"No sweat," Thomas said, and got up for a minute. He found a pad and a pen, came back and gave me a name and a phone number. "The only problem I see is that it'll be expensive. For full, legal backgrounds with frills like college degrees and credit history? I think you're looking at about a hundred thousand apiece."

"I can swing it," I said, and laughed at Thomas's disbelieving expression. I sobered a little and said, "Susan was rich, it turns out. She left me lots of money."

"Oh." Thomas looked pained for a moment, then said, "I'm sorry, Harry."

I sighed, nodded, then stood. "Okay, it's after eleven, and I'm likely to be woken up around eight— it's worth it for the breakfast, trust me— so I'd better be going."

They both hugged me, Thomas told me to ask the others about the New Year's Eve party ASAP, and I went back to the Carpenters' and to bed.

The next day, I went and got my driver's license and social security card replaced, then I went to see Susan's lawyer in New York. I used my mother's knowledge of the Ways of Faerie to get from Chicago to Manhattan in about fifteen minutes. Handy, that… and potentially addictive.

I didn't have an appointment, I didn't have any proof that Susan was dead, but I wanted to see where I should start with these things.

It freaked me out completely that I didn't have to worry about proving that Susan was dead; it seems that her body (complete with a passport that showed legal entry to Mexico) had been found in Mexico City, and had, after some bureaucratic garbage, been returned to Chicago, where she'd been buried in a plot that she'd bought years before (not long after she joined the Order of St. Giles, if my math was right).

The lawyer told me he was sorry for my loss, told me where to find Susan's grave, gave me a breakdown of the money that I had coming to me, told me that most of it would be delayed by probating the will, but that Susan had left me an envelope to be delivered on my appearance. He also told me that Susan's literary agent wanted to see me, and told me where to find him.

I went out of the lawyer's office, found a bench in a pretty little park across from his building, sat down, and opened the envelope. It held only a note— and a bank book.

The note said only; _Harry— Probating could take a while, so I arranged for you to have this,_ and ended with Susan's signature.

"Lady, you're something else," I said, shaking my head and opening the bank book.

It was for a savings account at the bank I'd always used for checking— and the balance was an even two million dollars!

"Stars and _stones,_ Susan, what are you trying to do, spoil me rotten!"

She didn't answer, of course, but for a moment, behind closed eyes, I saw her ready, wicked smile. That was… good enough for me.

I saw her agent, told him that, once things were probated, he could, in fact, accept the offer from filmmakers who wanted to make a movie out of Susan's one stand-alone novel, since I actually recognized the names of both producer and director, and had seem films from them that I liked. I told him to put the money, after his share, in a trust fund that had been set up for Susan's daughter, and he said his instruction from Susan had been to split it between me and Maggie, a seventy-five-twenty-five split in the kid's favor.

"Oh, hell, all right," I sighed. I made arrangements for him to be able to contact me, then made my way back to Chicago, and my bank. I moved half of the money in the account Susan had left me from savings to checking, ordered new checks (all my old ones had been in my apartment when the building burned to the ground), paid an exorbitant fee to have the checks the next day, and left the bank.

I walked right into the arms of two very large men in off-the-rack suits, who informed me very politely that Special Agent Tilly of the Federal Bureau of Investigation wanted to see me right away.

I sighed, nodded, and went with them, finding myself glad I'd walked— I didn't want Captain Midnight to end up being towed, that was bound to damage him.

I realized that I was already personifying my new car, and was actually grinning when the agents put me in the back of their car.

Twenty minutes later, I was ushered into an office, not an interrogation room, which surprised me. Pleasantly, for once.

Special Agent Barry Tilly stood up and offered me his hand, shook when I accepted, motioned for me to sit, and asked if I wanted a can of Coke.

"That would hit the spot," I admitted, and he got one out of a small fridge beside his desk and handed it to me. "So, Special Agent Tilly, to what do I owe the pleasure?"

"Well, Dresden," Tilly said, a small smile on his face, "it's mostly about my curiosity, to be honest. You disappeared from here last October, reappeared in a gun shop on the outskirts of town, then, the next afternoon, you vanish and leave behind a lot of your blood.

"Now, before you say anything, let me say a couple more things; nobody's listening to us. There are no recording devices or listening devices in here. I remember very well the way you saved my life and as many others as you could the day the vampires came.

"I want to know what happened— and if I can help."

"So, to clarify, this is off the record?" I said slowly. "Just between us guys?"

"Just between us." Tilly gave me a slightly wicked smile. "Also, knowing the real deal will help me come up with something to tell CPD. They want to talk to you about a lot of stuff— maybe I can help you get out from under them."

What the hell? I'd already told him about vampires.

"Okay, well, when Susan and I left here, we sort of ended up going from the frying pan to the fire— or maybe the middle of the freaking _sun,_ I could make a case…."

Two hours later, I left Tilly's office with his assurances that he'd run interference with the CPD for me. It seems that Rudolph, my chief problem in the Chicago Police Department, was under investigation by Internal Affairs (mostly thanks to Tilly's questions about the damage to Rudolph's house, my car, and the car of prominent wealthy citizen Thomas Raith, both of which had been parked in front of Rudoph's house), and would probably going to end up in jail. Since he'd been the one screaming about how I was a terrorist, a con man and probably a jaywalker, it might not be so hard to get the cops off my case.

Tilly walked me out, shook my hand, and watched me get into a cab to go back to the Carpenter's house. (I'd made sure I had plenty of cash when I left the bank, at least. And a cashier's check for Murphy for the exact total of the purchases she'd made for me.)

I sat back in the cab, tried to relax. It didn't happen. I couldn't relax for a reason that sounds… well, paranoid. Which I guess it was.

Things were going too smoothly. Things were all breaking my way. That doesn't happen to me. It just… doesn't.

But no out-of-control semi hit my cab. The driver didn't turn out to be a demon. I got back to the Carpenters' with no trouble at all. I didn't stay long, just went in and told Charity that I'd be back in time for supper. Then I went to do something that I needed to do alone; I went to the Water Beetle, Thomas's boat, where I'd left a few things. Murphy hadn't said anything about having collected them, so I knew they were where I'd left them. I needed to move them, and since I had a more secure place than the boat, I felt okay about doing so.

I opened the secret panel where I'd left the two Swords of the Cross that had been entrusted to me, and pulled them out. They were both just as I'd left them. Then I reached back inside and pulled out a T-shirt that I'd tied into a bag. It started moving immediately, twisting and jerking in my hand.

"If you aren't Harry Dresden, you're going to wish you'd never found that compartment!" said a familiar, snarky voice. "And if you are Harry Dresden, you'd better have a really good excuse for leaving me in here for the last _two months!"_

"I was dead, Bob," I said as I untied the shirt and pulled out the bleached skull that was home to my magical helper, who was a spirit of pure intellect. "Does that meet your standards for a really good excuse?"

"Don't be ridiculous!" Bob said, orange light blooming in the sockets of the skull. "You can't have been dead, that's a one way trip, except under the most extraordinary circumstances! Now, where the _hell_ have you been, Harry? I was worried! Worse, _I was bored!"_

"I told you, Bob," I said, setting his skull down on a table and sitting on the bench seat next to it. "I was dead. Seriously."

Bob's skull tilted up and his light-filled eye sockets seemed to lock onto mine. "You're _serious,_ aren't you?"

"Not to put too much of a pun on it, but, yeah," I agreed, and grinned. "Deadly serious."

"Oh, damn, you're really Harry, too," Bob said in a long-suffering tone. "No one else would dare make that pun!

"Okay, boss— spill. How'd you do it?"

Bob got the whole story. Everything I'd done, all the things that hadn't worked, the things that had, all of it. When I got to the part about meeting Buffy, Xander and Dawn, Bob actually bounced up and down on the table in pure glee.

"Do you realize what this means, Harry?" Bob asked, his voice as excited as I expected Maggie's to be on Christmas morning. "Harry, this means that every fictional universe probably exists out there somewhere! And that means that there's a place where Lady Alicia deWinter, the single most sexually knowledgeable woman I've ever read about, is _real!_

"We have to go exploring, Harry! You and me, two adventurers, seeking our fortunes and sexual gratification in the multiverse. I'll need to borrow your body now and then, of course, and—"

"Slow down, Bob," I laughed. "I've got more urgent things on my mind right now."

"What could be more urgent than sexual gratification?" Bob asked.

"Well, finding out who killed me, for one thing," I pointed out. "After all, I don't want them trying again before I've figured out who they are and how to stop them."

"Oh." Bob sighed. "Yes, I suppose I can see your point.

"All right, Harry, what do you want from me?"

"You know my cases backwards and forwards," I told him. "I want you to go over everything I've done since— well, start with the Storm Front case, and work forward. Give me a list of suspects, most likely to least— and do restrict yourself to people and things I've actually encountered personally. If we start listing those I've just made mad by existing, we'll never get the list done.

"Remember that it has to be someone who respects me or fears me enough to do the job from a distance, Bob. Whosis used a rifle, or hired someone to do it."

"All right, Harry," Bob said. "How long have I got?"

"Call it four days to get me the list," I said. I smiled, thinking about Christmas day. "I want to make sure Maggie has the best Christmas I can before I start working on this."

"All right, boss," Bob said. He managed to look apprehensive, despite his lack of a face, and asked, "I'm not going back in that damned hole, am I?"

"No, you're coming with me to the Carpenters'," I told him. "You're to stay quiet unless I take you out of wherever I put you and call you by name, okay?"

"All right, Harry," Bob said with a sigh. "Just… don't forget me, please?"

"Who could forget you?" I asked as I picked him up and put him back inside the T-shirt. "I couldn't, and I tried!"

"Ha-ha," Bob said from inside my T-shirt. "It's good to have you back, Harry."

"It's good to be back," I told him as I went to Captain Midnight and started for the Carpenters'. "Believe me, Bob— it's good to be back."

That left me only one more thing I needed to do to feel like I was truly back, but it would have to wait until the next day.

I needed to go to Susan's grave.

I needed to tell her goodbye— and to start apologizing for what I'd done to her.

I could never finish that apology, not in my own mind— but I needed to start.


	7. Chapter 7

Over the next couple of days, I did a lot of shopping, I spent a lot of time with Maggie and the other Carpenter kids, I helped Matthew and Daniel shovel sidewalks and driveway when it snowed on Christmas Eve (a LOT of snow), and I did remember to invite everyone to Thomas's New Year's Eve party. I even called him and asked him if it was okay to invite Will and the other Alphas, and he agreed easily.

But before all of that, I went to Susan's grave.

I found it by asking the caretaker, who was salting the asphalt paths where some ice had formed. There was a headstone there already, a white marble slab that had her name on it, the dates of her birth and death, and words that sent me to my knees in grief: _She died as she lived— bravely_.

I can't tell you much about that visit; it hurts. But at the end, when I was finally able to stand, I discovered that someone was standing behind me

"I did promise you, my dear godson, that you would be able to pay your respects to the lady whenever you wished," my Faerie godmother— literally— said quietly. "Also, I kept my promise to her, and saw to it that she would be declared dead according to the laws and ways of your land, that you and the daughter you made with her might inherit her wealth. I even restored her form to that of a fully human woman, removed the changes caused by her fall to the Red Court.

"Do you agree that I have kept these promises well, my child?"

"You have kept them very well," I said to the Leanansidhe, my godmother. "Thank you, Leah, for myself and my child."

"You are most welcome, godson," Leah nearly purred. She threw back the hood on the cloak she wore, revealing a beauty too perfect to be human, and smiled at me in a way that seemed almost sad. "I admired her as I do few humans. She was brave, and she went to her death more bravely than have many who were deemed heroes by history.

"And as for you, godson, well!" Leah's smile took on a very definite pride, and she patted my cheek with one cool hand. "You have come back from a place that few mortals ever leave, and you have come back whole, hale, and hearty. I am impressed, dear boy."

"Thank you, Godmother," I said, smiling as best I could while I tried to figure out a way to phrase a request without giving offense. "Godmother, I have to ask a boon of you. I will return it in kind, should the need ever arise, but… well, I hate to go too deep into debt for—"

"Hush," Leah said, her mouth tightening into a straight line. "Say no more! I know what you would ask, and I tell you that the asking would require refusal, and reporting that you asked.

"It is best if you simply keep out of sight until the spring dawns. After Ostara, it will be safe for you to… what is that phrase of your kind…? Oh, yes. After Ostara, you may 'come out of the closet,' godson."

I laughed. I couldn't help it, I just busted out laughing, raised my hand to ward off Leah's frown, and said, "No, not that phrase, godmother. I think you wanted 'come out of hiding.' 'Come out of the closet' has a very different meaning."

"La," Leah said, and gave a casual wave of her hand. "You understood me, dear boy— and perhaps a little laughter is good for you, right now.

"Now… I have kept my promise to you and to your lady, you have acknowledged that on both your counts— and I have duties elsewhere. But before I go, my child, I must ask… has the legacy left you by your mother had any ill effects on you?"

Leah was referring to the ruby stone at the center of my pentacle necklace, left me by my mother, that contained all of her (incredibly broad and detailed) knowledge of the Ways of the Nevernever. Having that knowledge had, in my mother's case, negatively affected her ability to sleep. Apparently, she rarely-if-ever slept the night through after learning all she had of the Ways.

"Not yet, godmother," I assured her. "I am sleeping as well as I ever did, and have noticed no other effects that might be from having her gift to me."

"It is well, then," Leah said. She pulled her hood back up over her white-streaked red hair, gave me a regal nod, smiled when I bowed deeply, and said, "I must away, godson. Until next time."

"Until then," I said, and straightened as Leah simply stepped sideways and vanished.

Once I was sure she was gone, I leaned against a tree and tried to slow my breathing and heartbeat. She was my godmother, yes, but she still terrified me, even— especially!— when she was being nice to me.

On the other hand, at least I now understood Susan's comment in her note to me, the bit about the arrangements she'd made with Leah to benefit me.

I got myself calmed down, wondered if I really could keep my head down until the Vernal Equinox— Ostara is one of the old names for the celebration of that event— so that Mab wouldn't notice me before her power began to dwindle, and that of Titania, Queen of Summer, to rise.

I sure as hell hoped so. I hadn't gotten myself killed on purpose, just to get out of being the Winter Knight, but I wasn't upset to lose the title, or even the power that went with it— and I might not be able to convince Mab that I _hadn't_ done it on purpose. She was crazy, deeply crazy, and not at all human, a fact which many forget, but that I've managed to keep in front of me after seeing her with my wizard's Sight. You see a being radiating that much power, that kind of power, and you never forget their lack of humanity. Trust me.

So I didn't mind at all being out from under her thumb. Yes, it meant that my brother had signed on with Mab, and that, someday, he and I might come to cross purposes— but it didn't _have_ to mean that. So maybe it wouldn't.

I went back to Captain Midnight, and I went shopping.

Christmas went very well. The gifts I gave were popular, and those I got were pretty freaking awesome, too. Maggie and the younger six Carpenter kids got me all of Susan's novels, which, I can tell you, were very, very good— but I got shivers reading them, knowing that Susan had faced the things in her books, or things very much like them.

In the week between Christmas and New Year's, we got the fake ID and backgrounds for Buffy, Dawn and Xander. Thomas had been pretty accurate about the costs (which I never discussed with Buffy or the others— they thought the guy was doing it as a favor for Thomas, and I let them think that). I ended up having my bank electronically transfer two hundred and eighty thousand dollars to an account in the country of Belgium, the account number having been given too me by "Paper" Jack Malone, the forger Thomas sent me to.

The guy was fast. We saw him (and I paid him up front) on the twenty-sixth, and at four in the afternoon of the twenty-eighth, he handed over the complete ID packets for Elizabeth Anne "Buffy" Sinclair, her sister, Dawn Marie Sinclair, and their long-time friend Alexander Lawrence "Xander" Hardesty.

Xander went straight to working "on the books" for Michael. Buffy went to work for me on the third of January, helping with setting up the office and such for me, Murphy and herself. Dawn got a job on the thirtieth of December, working as a translator and transcriber for the Field Museum, helping to translate the writings found on various artifacts that came into the Museum's possession. She loved her work, and she and Molly became fast friends, thanks in part to Molly and I spending a couple of hours a week learning Latin from Dawn. My ability with the language virtually soared under her teaching; I guess I need lessons from a person, not a book. Go figure.

New Year's Eve of that year was, to be blunt, the best I've ever had. Partying with a bunch of friends, none of whom felt like drinking too much or getting stupid, that was a blast. Add in that one of those friends was my brother, and I felt even better.

A couple of things did happen that night that I think are worth writing down. First, I ended up locked in a Soulgaze with Buffy.

We were talking about the kind of work I'd be having her do once I got my business up and running again, and after I'd finished, she put one hand over mine and said, "Harry? Thank you. For the job and for the ID, and for treating us all like friends right from the start."

"You are my friends, Buffy," I told her. She cocked her head and I smiled. "I've known you for years, since you were sixteen and moved to Sunnydale. Didn't you ever love a TV show so much that you felt like the characters were your friends? Or a book, or a movie?

"You, Xander, Dawn… you're all my friends. I realize it may take some time for you to get to know me the way I feel I know you— well, except for Xander, since he read those books— but I'm okay with that. It'll happen when it happens. Or at least I hope it will— you and your sister are the kind of people a guy wants for friends."

Buffy looked at me, met my eyes, and I held her gaze, trying to make her see how serious I was… and I held it just a fraction of a second too long.

A Soulgaze is a wizardly expression of that old saying "the eyes are the windows of the soul—" taken to a magical extreme. In a Soulgaze, I see everything that makes up the person I'm looking at— and they see everything that makes me… _me_.

For every wizard, it's a different experience. My friend and fellow Warden Carlos Ramirez hears music during a Soulgaze. For me, I see images, usually just one or two, sometimes several, that show me the things that are… most central to the personality of the person I'm Soulgazing. It takes mere seconds, though it always seems much longer to the participants.

I held Buffy's eyes just a little too long, and suddenly, I was standing on a high tower, looking over… the whole _world_. I watched as Buffy, wearing some sort of hi-tech body armor and looking a little older, a little more tired, but very, very alert, walked the circumference of the tower, her eyes constantly on the land around us, watching for trouble, for anything that required her attention, anything that needed slain….

Near the center of the tower top, another Buffy, this one younger, softer-looking, dressed simply in jeans and a T-shirt, sat on a big couch with Xander and Willow flanking her, Dawn sitting on floor leaning comfortably against her older sister's legs, and Giles sitting in a chair beside them, all of them talking quietly. Around a small table nearby sat Faith, Andrew and an Asian girl who I was pretty sure was Satsu, and each of them contributed to the conversation.

Watching them, standing just outside the circle of light that illuminated the center of the tower, was a third Buffy. This one wore a loose, frumpy, black dress, looked worried, and was chewing a fingernail industriously as she watched the people in the circle of light.

And every single Buffy glowed with a hard white light, the kind of light that spoke of good— good as a _force,_ uncompromising and hard, not kittens-and-butterflies, happiness-and-saccharine. The kind of good that had shone from my friend Michael, when he'd been acting as a Knight of the Cross, standing against evil and throwing the light of good in its face— good as a force, as a _weapon,_ that's what that hard, brilliant light spoke of.

As I registered this, the Buffy pacing the tower top stopped, looked at something far off— and jumped off the tower, flew towards whatever trouble she'd seen so fast she seemed to vanish. As she went, couch-Buffy stirred, said, " 'Scuse me guys," and walked over to take the place of armored-Buffy. As couch-Buffy moved out, dark-and-worried-Buffy moved to sit with her friends and family, her clothes changing as she did, becoming the jeans and T-shirt of couch-Buffy. I glanced back at couch-Buffy, and she'd changed to armored-Buffy. Even as I watched, the original— what I _thought_ was the original— armored-Buffy came back, her clothes and form changed to that of dark-and-worried-Buffy, and she stood watching her friends nervously.

"It's how I handle it," Buffy's voice said from behind me.

I turned to see still another Buffy, this one's clothes morphing from combat armor to a very nice (and more than a little sexy) mini-dress. Her form changed, too, looked still younger and softer, and I could hear music, fast, danceable music, when she came close to me, more dancing than walking.

"See, all of me is all of them," party-Buffy said, dancing around me and giving me a grin. "But each of me is the Warrior first. The rest… I'm those me's when I can be (except for paranoid-scared me, I'm only her when I can't help it), but I'm always ready to be Warrior-me. I just… make sure that the other me's get a chance to get out and do their thing, so I don't go nuts."

I saw two more armor-Buffies zip over the ramparts, one morphing into Buffy in PJs and a robe, carrying an open carton of ice cream, the other becoming a _much_ younger Buffy, Maggie's age at most, wearing a yellow dress and clutching a stuffed pig, each glowing with that hard, white light that spoke of power used for the sake of good.

"Warrior first, I get it," I agreed. I gave party-Buffy a grin and said, "Nice to know you found a way to deal with it."

"Oh, I didn't," she said. She grabbed my hand, danced around me, pulled me with her until I was looking straight at couch-Buffy and her friends and family again. "I didn't find it. They showed me. Taught me. They… gave it to me."

"Good deal," I said, nodding. "Well, this has been—"

Just like that, I was back in my own body, staring into the bright green eyes of the real Buffy— eyes that were wide with amazement, respect, and something that… that I hate to call _awe,_ but I kind of have to.

"Holy crap," Buffy said softly. "That was… what was that? Whatever it was… holy crap!

"Yeah. Yeah, you're worth making a friend of, Harry!

"Now, what _was_ that?"

"A Soulgaze," I said, and explained. I finished with, "I'm sorry— didn't mean for it to happen, but it's late, and—"

"No apology," Buffy said firmly. "I… what I saw was intense, and… more intense than that, but it was a _good_ kind of intense, Harry.

"So, yeah. You got a friend, right here."

"Uh, thanks," I said, blushing. I knew better than to actually ask what she'd seen— you can never talk about it. I've tried, and it just… doesn't happen. Somewhere between memory (and the memory of a Soulgaze, like all other things seen with wizardly Sight, is permanent and permanently fresh) and mouth, a complete failure in translation occurred, every time.

"Hey, you never said when you told us your story— what happened to Giles and Faith, Buffy?" I asked, since I'd just seen them in the Soulgaze.

"Giles and Faith were left out of it." Buffy sighed and looked a mixture of wistful and lonely. "We sent them to Pylea— the place where Angel's friend Fred spent a few years being treated like an animal. Since Wesley, Angel, Gunn and Lorne pulled off a big revolution there, we figured they'd be safe. By the time they got back, it would all be over."

"Wh—oh, I get it," I said. I nodded. "You wanted insurance that the Slayers would continue, because you knew that the vampires would come back from your visit to the future. And since the line ran through Faith by then… yeah, that was pretty smart."

"Thanks," she said, and grinned at me. "And you know, I'm even the one who thought of sending them out of our dimension. Dawn figured out the where, and our Wiccans did the work, but I thought of it."

"I'm not surprised," I told her, and that got my hand squeezed in a friendly fashion.

We rang the New Year in— and at fourteen minutes after midnight, the second thing worth writing down happened; Georgia Borden went into labor.

We all went to the hospital and waited, because it was just that kind of night; we all were pretty sober, Will and I both confident enough to drive (he'd had one beer all night long, I'd had three in four hours), so… we all went.

At four-fifty-one in the morning, Georgia gave birth to a little boy that they named Kirby William Borden, the Kirby being for a fallen friend, and Georgia insisting on William for his father. (Will protested, but was pleased as hell— you could see it in his eyes.)

We all went home— well, home or to our various guest beds— after that, and I, at least, slept really well. A new life to ring in the New Year? I like that.

The next week or so was spent in outfitting my office and apartment. I took the big one on the sixth floor, to get me as far as possible from the circuit breakers, furnace and water heater— even the air conditioners (several of them) were at ground level, in a neatly fenced in little pen behind the building.

I went a little nuts, I admit it. I got furniture that I liked for my apartment, and I didn't shop at any thrift stores. Then, at Xander's suggestion, I got a great big TV set, a wall-mounted flat-screen with a one hundred and eight inch screen. Xander's reasoning was that I'd be far enough from it to watch it without messing it up the way wizards do electronics, and he was right. Of course, I did go through remote controls fairly quickly, but that wasn't so bad— especially after Xander gave me a yard-long pointer with a fine tip, and mounted the remote on the wall near the end of the couch where I normally sat. That helped a lot, and got me back to a new remote every month or so, instead of every couple of weeks.

The office, I set up as nicely as I could; I had contractors in to install some walls, and I gave me the largest office, Murphy one not much smaller, and Buffy one of respectable size. I also had them put in one more, in case I wanted to expand to another employee later.

I let Murphy buy the equipment for her and Buffy to use, the surveillance gear and such. She knew what was needed a lot better than I would, since I couldn't use the stuff. I also let each of them pick their own desk, lamps and chairs. I could afford to let them personalize, after all.

I took out a new ad in the Yellow Pages, too; I was still under "Wizards," but also under "Private Investigators," and mentioned that we were also available for confidential investigations in the wizard ad, and that there was a wizard on staff in the PI ad.

Murph complained good naturedly about it still being just my name on the door, and I told her that when she was bankrolling the thing, she could name it. She called me an egomaniac, I thanked her, and we went on with the business of setting up a business.

Buffy, Dawn and Xander each took an apartment for themselves, Buffy and Dawn across from each other on the third floor, Xander above Buffy on the fourth. After some thought, I spoke to Molly, and she agreed that, when her lease on her current place ran out in May, she'd be taking one of the smaller places at a discount rate. (Her Warden's salary made her pretty comfortable, financially, but she still appreciated the discount.)

I spent a lot of time working on things to replace old things of mine. First thing I did, of course, was work on a new staff. I wanted this one to be even better than my last one, which meant a lot of time and effort went into it, and I used a lot of the things that I'd learned while teaching Molly to improve this staff. It would end up being even more versatile than the last one….

You can only spend so much time on any one magical item a day; there's a definite mental stress associated with enchantment, and it is worst if you spend too much time on any one item, so I spread myself around a bit— and I got a surprise.

The duster that Molly and Karrin had gotten me for Christmas had a removable liner that came out surprisingly easily, and could be put back in almost as easily. When I started working on the duster, Molly asked if she could have the liner for a while each day. I asked her why, and she gave me a little smile that said "I've thought of something you never did, boss," just as plainly as the words she used to tell me the same thing.

"What might that be?" I asked, raising an eyebrow.

"A surprise," Molly said firmly, and held out her hand for the liner. "Come on, Harry— trust me?"

"Okay," I said with a mock sigh. I handed her the liner and said, "But if I turn into something slimy when I put this on, you're paying for the dry cleaning!"

"Deal," Molly laughed, and went to the lab I'd set up for her in one of the extra apartments on the fifth floor.

By the thirteenth of March, I had replaced my staff, made my duster bulletproof, and had a shield bracelet that would do in a pinch. (So far, it worked only against kinetics, heat and electricity, but, unlike my previous shield bracelet, I could use one defense at a time or any combination of the available defenses; that meant if I was fighting something that only used fire, I'd use a lot less energy sustaining my shield than if I was running all three defenses at once.)

I had a start, but just a start, on replacing my kinetic energy rings, which stored up a bit of energy every time I moved my hand or arm, and could release it all at once on command. I was, again, making one for each finger of my right hand, only this time, I was going to make them from four bands of metal, not the three I'd used last time. This effectively would give me a thirty-three percent higher maximum output, but it was significantly time-consuming. If I was lucky, I'd have the first ring done by Easter, and after that, each one would be a lot quicker. I could conceivably have all four ready by midsummer, if the baddies stayed quiet long enough.

Also, Molly had finished whatever she'd done to my duster's liner. She gave it to me with great ceremony— and still wouldn't tell me what it did. I examined it, and didn't recognize the symbols that she'd stitched into the thing (Molly had gotten very comfortable with Asian [especially Japanese] symbology, which was amusing in someone who was so white she was almost transparent).

"It won't interfere with the bulletproofing, either," Molly said smugly. "I remember a lot of it from helping you refresh the working on your old duster, and I've kept track of what you're doing this time, and been careful."

"So what does it do?" I asked, and gave her my best glare.

"Put it on and find out," Molly said with that impish smile that made her look like a kid of twelve or thirteen again.

I sighed, put the liner in the duster, and put the coat on. I was indoors, so expected to get too warm quickly, decided to see if I couldn't figure out what the liner did before that happened. I failed— and felt really, really stupid for the failure.

After ten minutes of walking around, jumping, sitting, squatting, and doing a few light calisthenics, I finally sighed and said, "Damn. I can't tell what it does, and I doubt that I will before I start getting hot in this—"

Molly busted out laughing, and I heard Murphy and Buffy laughing behind me as well. I turned to glare at them for a second, muttered under my breath about docking paychecks, then gave Molly my best intimidating glare.

"Out with it, grasshopper. What does the liner do?" Molly laughed harder, and I sighed and said, "Kid, when I start sweating because I'm running around with a winter-weight coat on inside, I'm gonna get grumpy, and… you… don't… oh."

"Comfortable, boss?" Molly managed around another laugh.

"Yes," I said, grinning at my own stupidity as I finally caught on. "I shouldn't be— I should be pouring sweat by now, but… I'm fine!"

"I got it right, then," Molly said with a little nod and a big smile. "I know you hate summer more than winter, so I set it to maintain a temp a little below the seventy-two that is supposed to be comfortable for lightly-dressed humans. It's around seventy in that coat, and always will be, provided you let me refresh the enchantment every four months or so. Also, the temp-steady field extends up eighteen inches from the collar of the liner, ten inches from the sleeves, and down to ground level from the bottom."

"That," I said with great deliberation and solemnity, "is pure genius, Molly Carpenter. Thank you."

"You're welcome," Molly said, and she blushed a little and hugged me impulsively. "That's why I wanted to get this coat— the removable liner, I mean, so I could work on it without having to take away time from your work on the coat. Karrin liked the idea, too, so she went along with it."

"You'll still get people looking at you weird because you're a tall, skinny man in a duster in warm weather, Dresden," Murphy said— or maybe snickered. "Now, though, they won't be looking at you weird because you're a tall, skinny man wearing a duster in warm weather _and dripping sweat_. It reduces the suspicious factor by at least twenty-five percent."

"Thank you, Murph," I said. "It's nice to know that you have such a high opinion of the appearance of the man who _signs_ your _paycheck_."

"I call 'em like I see 'em, Harry," Murphy said smugly. "You ought to know that by now, but I suppose I have to make an allowance for the male intellect. Well, _so-called_ male intellect."

"However much I'm paying you, it's too much," I said. "Since you obviously have a second income from your stand-up comedy, I mean."

Molly and Buffy just laughed and left the room as Murphy and I pretended to glare at each other until I cracked up— another small victory for Murphy, me laughing first.

We opened for business, very quietly and with no fanfare, on the first of February. Over the six weeks or so after that, we had a few minor cases, mostly the sort of thing that required my attention; finding lost items has long been a specialty of mine, I'm great with a tracking spell. There were a couple of more mundane cases, which I let Murph and Buffy handle alone, as I was still working on replacing my magical foci. Everything went fine, and I'm here to tell you that adding Karrin Murphy to the payroll was a huge, huge advantage for me. She knew everything she needed to know to be a great investigator, and while she'd been forced into early retirement from the Chicago Police Department, she still had about a jillion friends on the force. This was a big, big help, and I didn't hesitate to tell her so. (Also, adding Karrin and Buffy let me expand more into the mundane cases, as mentioned above, and that made Dresden Investigation Services into a business that was operating _in the black_ before my next birthday rolled around. Boo-ya!)

Bob had long since come up with a list of people who might want me dead, as I'd told him to do. He even limited it to those who respected or feared me enough to use a rifle, or pay someone else to do so.

The problem was that the list was _seventy-eight_ names long— and after going over it with him, I couldn't shrink it. It included four out of seven members of the Senior Council of the White Council of Wizards, lots of other White Council members who didn't like me, all the known members of the Knights of the Blackened Denarius— also known as Nicky and the Nickelheads, because I think they're way to big a bunch of assholes to deserve such a respectable name as "the Knights of the Blackened Denarius"— a lot of demons, several vampires, several minor practitioners of magic whom I'd stepped on in my capacity as a Warden, and— well, you get the idea. Hell, even Lara Raith, Thomas's half sister and the head of the White Court of vampires, was on the list, and I'd used to be able to call her a friendly enemy and sometimes ally, when we had a common enemy. Of course, she did have issues with my relationship with Thomas (I reminded him that he'd tried to be human, once), and with my putting him in danger, and… well, with my knowing that she was the true power behind the White Court's throne, that her father was a puppet and she pulled the strings….

Bob pointed out that, even if she hadn't wanted to kill me before (which was questionable at best), she would now that Thomas had become the Winter Knight in my stead, since Lara would blame me for that, and never mind the irrationality of the situation.

That didn't make me feel a lot better. Of course, neither did having a list of seventy-eight people who probably wanted me dead. That sort of thing can ruin a guy's day, you know?

So I finished my staff on Sunday the thirteenth of March— and on the fourteenth, I decided that it was time to get serious about finding out who'd killed me, why, and, if they'd been hired to do it, who'd done the hiring and why.

I had thought about it long and hard, and I'd thought about the advice given me by the one old friend that I'd met on the long road from dead to not-dead. That advice had been simple enough; think about who might want me dead that hadn't, in fact, been in my face for a while.

At first, that seemed to be pretty silly— but then I thought about it… and decided it wasn't silly at all. After all, what better way to put the target off your trail if he survives the attempt than to simply be so long out of sight that you'd become out of mind as well?

After long and serious thought, I decided to approach the one person that I was fairly sure wouldn't broadcast to the supernatural community that I was alive, partly because his own position in said community was a bit odd, but mostly because Chicago crime lord Gentleman John Marcone never, ever told anybody anything if keeping it to himself even _might_ do him some good.

So I started my investigation into my murder by talking to a man that I respected almost as much as I hated his guts.


	8. Chapter 8

The real trick in talking to John Marcone was getting him alone. I couldn't talk to him around Sigrun Gard, his own magical specialist— she owed a duty to Donnar Vadderung (who is really freaking _Odin)_, and he was a member of the Grey Council, and nominally friends with my old mentor and recently-discovered grandfather, Ebenezar McCoy. I didn't want my grandfather knowing I was back yet, because I was sure he'd be being watched, listened in on, and otherwise observed by the enemy. The enemy probably included my murderer, so ixnay on that.

So I had to catch Marcone without Gard around. And also, come to think of it, without Hendricks, his bodyguard/enforcer, who had a serious thing for Gard, and would probably tell her I was back to 1) get in her good graces, and 2) annoy the hell out of me, since he likes me almost as much as I like him, and I like him like I like the freaking flu.

This would have been somewhere between impossible and harder than that, except that I knew a secret of Marcone's. He'd been responsible— in his eyes, at least, and damn him for being that human, it made him harder to hate— for the apparent death of a little girl. It wasn't his fault, even my judgmental, Marcone-hating butt saw that. Someone in the mob had been trying to kill Marcone, and the little girl had been hit in the shooter's reckless, wild spray, which had, obviously, failed to kill Marcone.

That one event, that little girl dying— he thought— because of reckless criminals, that had driven John Marcone to take over all criminal enterprises in the city of Chicago. He'd done it, he ruled with an iron fist— and he forced those under him to be less violent, less reckless. Damn it. That made it harder to hate him, that iron control that habit of brutally punishing recklessness that resulted in danger to innocents, to kids.

Once he'd gotten into power, Marcone found out that the girl hadn't died. The former crime boss, whose son had been the shooter that missed Marcone, had bribed a coroner, some morticians, and god knows who else, to lie and say she was dead. Then he'd put the girl in a hospital out of state, as insurance. If anyone were to find out and charge his son with murder, or if Marcone were to arrange for the charges to be made, the son-of-a-bitch could produce the living girl— and get his son off on the charges.

Marcone paid for the best of all possible care for the girl, kept her alive at his own expense— he'd even stolen the Shroud of Turin, used it to try and heal the girl— and he visited her once a month or so….

I got luckier than I deserved to be, and I only spent one night in a hotel before John Marcone showed up at the ritzy private hospital in upstate Wisconsin to spend an hour reading to the now-adult, comatose girl. He came in the afternoon of the fifteenth, and he didn't notice the old Packard parked in the back of the lot, or the tall, rakishly handsome man who slumped even farther down in the seat when Marcone got out of the very nondescript rental car he'd driven there.

I waited about an hour, then got out of Captain Midnight and went to sit on the hood of Marcone's rental. Fifteen minutes later, he came out, saw me— and froze in place, his eyes narrowing, his expression going flat. Still, I could see the wheels turning in his head, see him putting things together, shuffling old data aside and reinserting me into his worldview.

"Alas," Marcone said as he started walking towards me again. "I knew it was too good to be true. I knew you couldn't really be so courteous as to die and uncomplicate my life."

"Nice to see you, too," I said and stood up off the car. I held up my hands and said, "I'm here on a peaceful mission. Not to cause trouble."

"Then why go to the effort of seeing me here?" Marcone asked, stopping some six feet from me and watching me like a cat watches a mouse that has, inexplicably, found a mouse-sized rocket launcher somewhere. "Why not simply come to see me in Chicago?"

"I'm officially missing," I said, stepping back and leaning against the side of the car. "At least as far as the magical community knows, anyway. I'd like that to keep on, and if I saw you in Chicago—"

"Gard would know, would very likely make it known that you aren't dead or missing after all," Marcone said, nodding and moving to lean against the car himself. "Of course, she'll know anyway, when I tell her."

"I was kind of hoping you wouldn't do that, actually," I said, carefully keeping my voice calm.

"It's good to have hope," Marcone said noncommittally, staring off at the same patch of woods that I was.

I sighed. "Look, Marcone… someone killed me last October."

Marcone snorted a little, looked sideways at me for a second, and shook his head. "You seem rather lively for a dead man."

"I managed to fight my way back," I said, my tone even and factual. "I got insanely lucky, and circumstances made it possible for me to do it— but it's not the sort of thing that's going to happen twice. I'd like to find who killed me before they know I'm back, make sure it won't happen again."

"And I should help you because…?" Marcone asked, his voice bored and disinterested.

I took a long, slow breath, and took maybe the biggest chance of my life with my next words.

"Because I have a child," I said, my voice as steady as I could make it, which, okay, wasn't all that steady. "Because you're just decent enough that you won't want to see her orphaned." I jerked my chin towards the hospital. "And because you know that even if you refuse me on this, I won't tell anyone about her.

"But mostly? Because of my little girl."

Marcone was silent for a moment, but he turned his head to look at me. After a long, long moment, he spoke.

"The girl that the Carpenters' are caring for," he said, his voice so carefully empty of threat that it almost sounded warm. "Does she know that you're her father…?"

"I wasn't going to tell her," I said, sighing and shaking my head a little. "But she was smarter than I figured, remembered more than I thought— and Michael told her at a moment when I had no idea what to say. She knows."

"That's… good," Marcone said, his voice still carefully calm and even. "Believe it or not, Dresden, I think that it's a good thing that she knows."

I floundered for a long moment, then managed, "Thanks."

"What do you need from me?" he asked.

"I was shot, as you probably know," I said, tapping the place where the bullet went in. "From a long way off, with a rifle. I'm pretty sure that whoever did it was a professional. And if there was a professional assassin involved, either he was someone in your organization, or someone in your organization knew he was in town, in all likelihood.

"I figure he wasn't one of yours— but maybe you can find out who he was, give me a place to start investigating."

"You don't want me to look into who hired the shooter?" Marcone asked, sounding intrigued.

"No," I said immediately. "Look, Marcone, we both know that the person who ordered the killing was probably from the magical side of things." He nodded, and I said, "I know you're a freeholding lord according to the Unseelie accords, but we both know that if you start asking questions about this, someone will get upset— and they'll use catspaws to go after you, or just go after you themselves, and deal with the fallout after. You're not all that popular, you know."

"Not yet, you're right," Marcone actually admitted. "All right. I'll see what I can do. How do I reach you?"

I handed him a "Dresden Investigative Services" card, and he glanced at it and looked thoughtful for a moment before he chuckled and said, "I'd heard that Sergeant Murphy had gone into private investigation. That was actually a wise move on your part, Dresden. Well played."

"Yeah, she's a treasure," I admitted. "Anyway, just call the office with the info. If I'm not there, you can trust either of the women who might answer."

"Your apprentice— former apprentice, I understand she's a full member of the White Council, now— is working for you, as well?" he guessed.

"No, this is someone I met on the trip back from being dead," I said with a dismissive wave. "But she's trustworthy."

"All right," Marcone said, and put the card in his breast pocket. He hesitated visibly, then shocked the hell out of me. "Dresden… your little girl. What's her name?"

I stood there gaping for a couple of seconds, then I closed my mouth and thought for a couple more. Hell. I hated the man— but I respected him, and on this one thing… I trusted him.

"Maggie," I said finally. "Her name is Maggie."

"Thank you," he said, and, without another word, turned around and got in his rental car. I moved away from leaning on it, and he drove away while I was still walking back to Captain Midnight.

I got back to Chicago that night to find that Buffy was waiting for me in the office, and Karrin was on her way. There was a client there, as well— and it took me a minute to get my head wrapped around who it was.

"Larry Fowler," I said, my voice fairly oozing satisfaction. "Larry Foul-er."

The jackass caught the pronunciation the second time around, and glared at me. Then he seemed to think better of it, and he actually stood up and said, "Mr. Dresden, I realize you haven't got a lot of reason to love me— but I'm in trouble, and… dammit, if you're for real, you may be the only person who can help me."

"Well, now," I said, eyeing the man coldly. "That's a lot of nerve, Larry. You've been suing me, repeatedly, for… what is it, nine years now?"

"Yeah." Fowler fought to clear his face of the sulky look that wanted to blossom there, and I smiled inside to see the struggle. "Yeah. You blew up my studio!"

"No, I didn't," I said, and headed for my office. "Because I'm a fake, remember? I couldn't have had any effect on your equipment— certainly not any effect that _I warned you of repeatedly_— if I'm a fraud, a fake and a— what was that phrase? Oh, right! 'A charlatan of a con man,' that was it.

"Buffy, I leave this to you and Karrin— but if you do take the case, charge him the usual rate, plus an affidavit that says he absolves me, now and forever, of any damages of any sort to his studio, his person or his reputation." Fowler opened his mouth and I said, "And that, Mr. Fowler, is non-negotiable. Also, I'll have the document prepared by a lawyer."

I went into my office, shut the door, sat down at my desk— and tried hard not to actually cackle laughter. Cackling is something that only madmen and super-villains do, and I was neither. Honest.

Twenty minutes later, Karrin Murphy knocked on my door and entered when I called.

"Harry, we need your input on this one," Karrin said with a sigh. "Before we can even decide to take it, I mean. If what he says is true, this is a 'Harry and Buffy' case, not a 'Murphy and Buffy' case."

"Okay," I said with a smirk. "But if I start cackling, slap me. Not too hard— but slap me."

"Cackling?"

"Only super-villains and psychopaths cackle. It's just that seeing Larry Fowler with his nuts in a vise… well, that's almost enough to make me wish I was a super-villain, so I could tell him to piss up a rope and deal with it himself."

"Aaaah." Murphy rolled her eyes and shook her head. "Okay, Harry. If you cackle, I'll slap you. Hard."

"Not too hard," I cautioned as I stood up.

"Hard," Murphy said, and gave me a hard little smile. "Think of it as anti-cackling incentive."

"Cheater," I muttered as I went out to the lobby, and sat down in the little discussion area formed by several comfortable chairs around a coffee table. I sat down across from Fowler, gave him my best, "it sucks to be you" grin and said, "Okay, my associates say that this one is right down Charlatan Alley, so I guess you have to talk to me, Larry.

"Oh! Murphy, that lawyer we use? I know it's late, but call his cell and tell him I have a small rush job for him tonight." I filled her in on what I wanted added to our standard contract for Fowler, and told her, "Tell him I'll pay double his hourly rate for the one-hour minimum, it won't take him any time at all."

Murphy walked away to make the call, her face carefully not that of an amused woman— at least, not while Fowler could see her.

"You were serious about that?" Fowler said, looking sour. "Seriously, you meant that?"

"If I decide we can help you, we'll take your case only if you sign the agreement, Larry," I said. I had to fight that whole cackling thing at the expression on his face. Only the thought of the kind of damage Murph could do to me if she slapped me kept me from it.

"Bastard," Fowler said conversationally. "Fine. I just hope to Christ you can help me."

"What's the problem?" I asked.

"You know what Otherkin are?" he asked me.

I snorted laughter, fought it down, and said, "Yeah, I do. They think they're descended from elves, or faeries, or some sort of shapeshifters, usually werewolves or— and this is laughable— werecats of some sorts. They're stupid, but harmless. I mean, there are no elves, never were any, as those people think of them, and if they were Faerie, they'd be changelings, and they'd laugh at the whole 'otherkin' thing (and keep their lips zipped about being changelings), and if they were descended from werewolves, I'd know it.

"As for werecats? Puh-lease. Never been any such thing that I've heard about, at least not in North America. Unless maybe there's something in the Native American cultures that I don't know about, which is possible.

"You have a problem with _otherkin?"_

"I know, it sounds stupid as hell," Fowler said with a sigh, shaking his head and dry-scrubbing his face. "I did a show about it Monday morning— some parents are concerned about their kids living this sort of bizarre fantasy, so I had a couple of debunkers on, a pair of kids and one parent each, and four so-called otherkin, adults all. One said he was an elven warrior-mage, one said he was a faerie, one swore he was a werecat, and one swore he was a dhampyr, which is—"

"An anti-vampire, usually the child of a vampire father and a human mother," I interrupted, and shot him a look. "Do I tell you about what g-stop to use on your cameras?"

"What?" Fowler said. Then he got what I thought I meant, and said (around a laugh), "Oh. Right. Sorry.

"Anyway— well, over the course of the show, the debunkers pretty much ripped the otherkin apart. One of the kid-otherkin was crying, the other kid admitted he was just looking for attention, and three of the 'adult' otherkin had gotten up and stormed out when challenged to prove any of their bullshit. The last one…. It was the kid claiming to be an elf, a war-mage elf. He…."

For a long moment, Fowler was silent, then he said, "He stood up, walked over to me, and told me that he'd be coming for me. Then he… he pointed at the nearest camera, and he said something in what I'm guessing was supposed to be elvish— and the camera shorted out, big and loud. Messy, too— like they did around you."

"Crap," I said, sitting up straight. "Okay, that can't be all."

"It's not." Fowler looked abjectly miserable for a moment, and said, "I had a dog. Big, dumb mutt, but loveable. Wouldn't hurt a fly, you know?"

I nodded, and he said in a rough voice, "Ahnold— that was his name, after Conan the Republican, you know? Ahnold, he had a dog door, and I have a fenced-in yard….

"I found him on the back patio yesterday morning. Burned up, down to bones— and the concrete had even burned some around him."

"Stars and stones," I said softly. "We'll take the case.

"Is there anything else?"

"Tires on my car… they vanished while I was driving to the studio this morning," Fowler said. He'd gone pale as hell, and he sounded scared silly. _"Vanished,_ Dresden, while I was doing about thirty miles per hour. The cops… they haven't got the first idea what to do. One of them sent me here, a guy named Rawlins. He told me that you, Ms. Murphy and Ms. Sinclair would know what to do.

"I have a family," Fowler finished, his voice trembling. "A wife, two kids. I… should I send them out of town?"

"Way out of town," I agreed immediately. "Got relatives on either coast?"

"My mother-in-law is in Buffalo," Fowler said. "Is that really—"

"Yes, it's really a good idea," Murphy said, standing up. "Are they at home now?"

"No, they're in a hotel," Fowler said, his voice steadying. "I called my wife after the thing with the car, told her to take the kids to a hotel here in the city, and not to tell me which one or call me, that I'd call her."

"Good move," I said, nodding. The fax machine over in the corner (as far from my office as possible), started whirring, and Murphy went to check it. She came back with one of our standard contracts, as modified by the lawyer we used for various and sundry. She checked over the changes, handed the thing to me with her thumb by them, and I read them, approved them, and slid the contract over in front of Fowler. "This is our standard contract, with the modifications I already told you about. Initial in the four blanks, sign, and you've got yourself the help you need."

Larry Fowler read the contract carefully— good man— then sighed a put-upon sigh, initialed where indicated, and signed. I did the same, and nodded. "Buffy, you take Mr. Fowler home, go over the place with a fine-tooth comb, and stay in touch.

"Mr. Fowler, will your wife need anything from home before she goes to New York?"

"She shouldn't," he said, looking thoughtful. "I… wasn't sure how long this would go on, I told her to pack for at least a week."

"All right," I said, nodding. "Call your wife on the way home, but give Murphy her cell number now. Murph, you take those people to Midway or O'Hare, whichever can get them on their way to New York first, then come back here— if I've gone anywhere, I'll leave a note for you in kitchen of my apartment.

"Why not down here?" Murphy asked.

"Because there are wards on my apartment, Murph," I said. I shook my head and said, "Karrin, this sounds like a warlock."

Murphy took a deep breath, let it out slowly, and said a very quiet, "Shit."

"Exactly," I said. "Get moving."

"What are you planning on doing?" Murphy asked.

"I'm going to talk to Bob." I winced, then said, "And I may have to talk to Molly."

"Dresden—"

"Murphy, if this kid is too far gone, I'll need to bring Molly in so she can call in the Wardens." I gripped my staff too tightly, and added, "You know that I won't do that if I don't have to, Karrin— but you know what would happen if the police tried to hold a warlock."

She closed her eyes, nodded once, then said, "I hope it doesn't come to that."

"You and me both," I said, and squeezed her shoulder. "Get a move on, Murph. Get Fowler's family out of town.

"Fowler, I'll need the name and address of that kid. Do you have it?"

Fowler said, "His name is Glenn Corwin. I don't have his address, but I can get it from my production people."

"Do that, ASAP, then… crap. Buffy, can you call Dawn with the info, have her come find and tell me, leave a message in my kitchen if I'm not here?"

"Sure, Harry," Buffy said. She smiled and said, "She'll be glad too— she's missing the old days, you know?"

"So she's crazy, that's what you're telling me?"

"Completely. But I've known that for _years_."

Murphy left, Buffy and Fowler left— and I snickered and wondered if Fowler would spring for a cab, or let Buffy drive him home in one of our two company cars. I kind of hoped for the car— because Principal Snyder, in one episode of the show that had been based around Buffy's life, had been absolutely right at least once, when talking about Buffy.

She really did drive like a spaz.

I shook myself, then started up the stairs to my apartment, my lab, and Bob.

I'd taken the top story apartment for a lot of reasons; got me way, way away from the basement, circuit breakers, furnace and water heater, got me up where I had a bit of space between me and the apartments of the Scooby Gang— and it helped keep me in shape, because I rarely used the elevator, not wanting to break it for the others with my walking-techno-bane. Five flights a couple of times a day? Good exercise, like the running I'd taken up again, which I did not for the cardio, but so that when I needed to run from something trying to kill me? I ran fast and I ran for longer than most.

Bob was in my lab reading a used paperback romance, and he grumbled about being interrupted— until I said the word "warlock," at which point he sat up and paid attention.

Unfortunately, he wasn't much help. He knew about otherkin, but only from the derision that the real magical types had for them. (I never knew how, but somehow, Bob got all the gossip, even— and without leaving my lab.)

"Sorry, Harry," Bob said as I sighed and sat back. "It's just that there's nothing I can tell you about a bunch of people who got it so wrong.

"The only thing I can suggest? This particular idiot sounds as though he got all of his ideas about Elves— 'warrior-mage,' _please!_— from a fantasy game. Probably Dungeons and Dragons, since it's the most popular one. If you know anyone who knows much about that game in particular, you might want to speak to them. Otherwise, just expect generic fantasy-game-magic.

"Of course, if he got his ideas from some fantasy novel, you may be screwed, unless you're lucky enough to have read the same book, and recognize the tells on his magic.

"Worst case scenario, he's a writer, or a wannabe, and he's got his own made-up system. That could be bad."

"Thank you _so_ much," I sighed.

I left Bob to his reading, and went out to my living room to call Molly. She wasn't at home. I called her folks' house. She wasn't there, but Charity promised to have Molly find me if she heard from her. So I headed for the coat rack to grab my duster before moving out.

Halfway to the rack, there was a knock on the door. I opened it to find Dawn there, a carefully printed name and address in her hand.

"Thanks a ton, Dawn," I said, taking the paper. "You just made my night easier."

"You're welcome," Dawn said, and smiled at me. "Want to hear some more good news?"

"Please?" I said, my voice hopeful.

"I saw that episode of Fowler last Monday," Dawn said, smiling. "And I found clips from it online, which I was able to freeze-frame and print shots from."

She pulled a folded sheet of paper from behind her back and handed it to me. I found myself looking at a pretty good shot of a sullenly handsome young man in his early twenties, with pale blond hair, green eyes, and a lean, angular face.

"You get tired of the Field Museum," I said, grinning a fierce grin, "I can damned well offer you a job, Dawn. This is brilliant!"

"Thanks," she said, blushing just a little. "I remember the show— this kid Corwin, he was… intense, Harry. He didn't lose his temper or start shouting, he just maintained firmly that he was the reincarnation of a warrior-mage elf from a northern outpost of Atlantis, that he could, in fact, do magic, but had no need to prove himself to any 'lesser beings.' At least, until Fowler went after him, when the other three stormed out. Then he made some threats, did a number on the camera, and left at a casual walk— one of the other cameras followed him.

"I thought it was just playing to the audience, you know? I'm sorry about that."

"You had no way of knowing, and have nothing to be sorry about," I told her. "Seriously, Dawn— this is a big help, so lighten up on the guilt."

"Okay, well," Dawn said, watching as I took my duster down, put it on, then shook Mouse's leash, which caused him to come ambling out of the kitchen, his tail wagging. "I could spend some time trying to see if he has a Facebook page, or anything like that, if that would help."

"It might," I admitted, watching as Mouse greeted her happily— she had a good touch for ear-scratching. "Can you let Buffy know if you find anything?"

"Sure," Dawn said, and gave me a look that said she loved the idea of helping. "Okay, anything particular I should look for?"

"No, I d— wait." I thought for a moment, then said, "Look, you know I can't skate the internet—"

"Surf the internet, Harry."

"Whatever," I said with a shrug. "So I don't know all that there is out there. Is there any chance that, if he's written stories or a journal about this elf he thinks he is, they're on the internet?"

"A really good chance, actually," Dawn said, nodding. "And if he uses a social network like Facebook or Myspace, he probably has links to them there."

"Okay, if you find anything, and it's not— well, it's not something as huge as the average Robert Jordan novel, give it a skim, look for anything on the sort of magic he puts in the stories." At he questioning look, I told her, "Odds are, that'll be the sort of thing he does out here in what I laughingly call 'the real world,' you know?"

"Oh, I get it," Dawn said, nodding. "Okay, I'll get right on it, and I'll call Buffy and Karin both, so they can tell you— and know what to watch out for themselves."

"That's it, you're hired," I said, and hugged her. "Anytime you want extra cash, see if we need research done. Keep track of how much time you spend tonight, too, I'll pay you for it."

"You don't have to—"

"Yes, I do," I told her, and bent to put Mouse's lead on him. "I'm not kidding— keep track of the time, Dawn. Please."

"Okay," Dawn said, looking happily excited. "Damn, this feels like being a Watcher again!"

"Glad you like it," I said, and followed her out to the hall. "Thanks again for the picture— huge help, kiddo."

"No problem," Dawn, and followed Mouse and I down the stairs to the third floor, where she waved and went to her own apartment while me and the mutt went on down to the first floor and Captain Midnight.

It took half an hour to get to the ratty-looking house in Naperville that apparently housed Glenn Corwin. No lights were on, but that didn't mean much. I drove on past, found a parking place around the corner, and reluctantly left Captain Midnight there. This was not a nice neighborhood at all— that was the one problem with Susan's gift to me, he was maybe the most valuable antique car in the city. Still, he ran like a top, and hadn't yet had to go to a mechanic for more than an oil change, so I took a small risk, and pulled a bit of holomancy out of my hat. I'd gotten pretty good at that, while teaching Molly, and I used it now to make Captain Midnight look like the old Blue Beetle, whom, while I'd loved him, no one would bother to steal.

Then I went down the street towards Glenn Corwin's house, Mouse at my side, my staff in my hand and my blasting rod in a specially made holster that Molly had installed in the liner. I didn't have any kinetic rings yet, but I did have a working shield bracelet that would protect me from the most common magical (and non-magical, come to think of it) forces used to attack; kinetics, fire and electricity.

Mouse and I went past the house, and no light came on, no curtain— all visible curtains were closed— moved. So we went to the corner, came back, and this time, we started across the yard for the back of the place.

Immediately, I felt a shiver go down my spine, and I found myself thinking that this was a bad idea, that I wanted to leave— but I recognized it for what it was, a ward constructed with a strong emotional push towards fear. I stopped, focused my mind on a purely mental defensive shield— and the fear went away.

"Not good," I said softly to m Mouse as we started across the yard (he seemed totally unaffected by the ward). "Seriously not good, pal."

We got close to the back— and suddenly Mouse let out an urgent whine and pulled me past the three concrete steps to the back entry to the house, and to the angled, bulkhead doors that presumably led to the outside stairs down to the basement of the house. Mouse stopped there, sniffed at the doors, then let out a second urgent whine and scratched at the doors then looked up at me.

"I have got to learn to understand you, Mouse," I sighed, remembering how I'd been able to understand everything he said when Leah had, temporarily, transformed me (and the others with me) into hounds so that we could get through a five-mile-wide section of jungle that would have been mostly impenetrable to humans. "Okay— if someone down there is hurt, scratch at the door again."

Mouse promptly turned to the bulkhead door, scratched once, then looked up at me.

"Okay, then," I said, sighing and pulling a pair of gloves out of my duster pocket. "Murphy's not a cop anymore, but she still hates it when I break the law, I'll bet. But if someone's hurt, she's just gonna have to deal."

There was a padlock on the doors, but I'm a wizard. I used a carefully applied amount of pure force, and the padlocked snapped off its hasp. I pulled the door open, and Mouse took the several steps down in two bounds, scratched at the ordinary wooden door into the actual basement once, and looked at me. I checked, and it was locked— no surprise that the kid was paranoid— and I decided to force it the old-fashioned way. One good kick next to the lock-plate and it popped right open.

Immediately, I smelled blood— and Mouse charged in, and never mind the inky darkness. I cursed, took my pentacle necklace out so that it lay on my chest, and willed it to give light. Mouse was down the right branch of a short hall that ran both ways, ended at stairs up to the left, and disappeared around a corner a little past where Mouse was. He waited in front of the first door down that way, his eyes on me telling me to hurry.

This door wasn't locked. I opened it— and the smell of blood got stronger, and other smells slammed out of the room and into me.

Decay. Death. Smells that did not come from healthy bodies, or even living ones.

Someone started whimpering when I came into the room, and Mouse ran straight to a small cage against the far wall, started whining— but I was staring around the rest of the room in sheer horror, tinged with rage, and didn't hear him, at first.

There were three tables in the room, old surgical tables, I thought, and there were bodies on two of those tables. Both bodies had been women, and each had been… altered. Changed, made into some sort of… well, creatures. I made myself look, and saw the that changes were different. One woman had been— well, re-shaped, magically, to have wings where she should have had arms. It looked as though Corwin had been trying to make some sort of— well, bird woman, and had screwed it up, killed his victim while making changes. I made myself use my wizard's sight on the woman, and saw what he'd done; he'd tried to imprint a bird's instinctive knowledge of flight onto the woman's mind, and he'd screwed it up, replaced all of her consciousness with that of a bird, effectively killing her— and her body had died of the bird's fright.

I made myself look at the second woman's body, and saw something similar; he'd been trying to make her into a cat-woman, and he'd just screwed up the physical changes somehow, caused a glandular over-reaction. She, too, had died of a heart attack, this one seemingly brought on by her adrenaline gland— which was about five times the size it should have been— doing a catastrophic dump into her bloodstream.

Finally, I pushed the sight and my Sight away, and went to the cage, which was about big enough for an ordinary big dog— a Rottweiler, or something a little bigger— and looked at the young woman inside it. She was small, redheaded, pretty as all get out, and nude. I could see that she looked healthy and normal-human.

"Please, get me out!" she cried, her voice quiet, but desperate. "Please, I'll do anything, just get me out of here!"

"Ssh, it's okay," I soothed. I looked at the lock, saw that it was just an ordinary padlock, and popped it with a minor effort of will. "There— come on, I think I saw something you could wear over here."

She climbed out of the cage, too frightened to even think of fig-leafing herself, and clutched at my coat sleeve and Mouse's collar as I went across the room to where I'd seen a pile of discarded clothes. The girl moved past me, picked up a pair of jeans and a shirt, pulled them on in a hurry, not bothering with the underwear nearby. I saw that the bra had been ruined, and the panties, both looking as though they'd been torn off of her (the clothes fit her perfectly, so I figured they were hers). She found the shoes that she'd apparently been wearing, shoved her feet in them, and said, "Are you a cop?"

"No, a private investigator," I said, watching with approval as Mouse moved over to her, sat in front of her, and offered a paw to be shaken. She shook it, even managed a strained smile, and I said, "My name's Harry Dresden.

"When did this guy take you? And where from?"

"Last night," the girl said. She dropped to her knees and hugged Mouse firmly. "I left the library, was headed home and he— he came up and told me to follow him, and— look, you won't believe me, I know, but—"

"He told you to follow him," I said gently, "and you had no choice. I do believe— and I know how he did it."

"It's magic, isn't it?" she asked, her voice tiny and scared. "I saw— saw what he did to her—" She pointed at the cat-woman corpse. "— and it had to be magic."

"It's magic," I said, my voice heavy with a carefully controlled anger. "It's black magic— and I'm going to see to it that he pays for what he's done, miss."

"Sorry," she said, standing up and actually managing a little, tiny smile as she offered her hand to me. "Cheryl. Cheryl Guildford."

I shook her hand and said, "Okay, let's get you out of here. Who'll be missing you, and would they have called the cops?"

"My roommate would miss me, and she probably did call the cops." Cheryl shuddered and said, "Jesus. Magic."

"Okay, let's get you out of here, and back home," I said. I hesitated, then said, "You know that if you tell the cops about this, they won't believe you?"

"Yeah, I know," she said, and looked at me askance. "Hey. You didn't touch the lock on the cage. And you aren't freaking. You a magician?"

"Wizard," I corrected. "Magicians are the guys with top hats and rabbits."

"Okay, well— look, I don't want to be here one second longer than I have to, but can you maybe help the girls upstairs?" Cheryl asked.

I froze and turned away from the exit from the basement— we'd gone out in the hall while discussing the difference between wizards and magicians— and said in a voice filled with dread, "What girls upstairs?"

"There's two girls up there," Cheryl said, shivering. "Dressed in… well, robes like the Greeks used to wear, only so sheer they might as well not be there. And sandals, and collars, and— and he did something to them, they were all over him when he brought me in, and their ears are pointed, like a Vulcan, you know?"

"No," I said through a fog of hate and dread. "Like _elves_."

Without another word, I started for the stairs up into the house proper.


	9. Chapter 9

I was too angry to think about subtlety, about not leaving signs that I'd been in this bastard warlock's house, and I simply went up the basement stairs two at a time, slammed open the door at top, and emerged into a dark kitchen. No sound came to my ears but the hum of the refrigerator and the dim sounds of traffic from outside.

I stopped in the middle of the kitchen, Cheryl Guildford behind me, Mouse beside her, but his head raised and sniffing the air. He let out a chuffing noise, neither a whine nor a growl, which made me feel better, and he took a step towards the front of the house, looked up at me, and chuffed again.

"Stay here," I said to Cheryl, and took a couple of steps that way. The doorway in front of me opened on a living room, and there was enough light coming through the curtains from the nearby streetlight that I could see two silhouettes on the couch, just heads and shoulders, but I was fairly sure they were women. They didn't move as I stepped into the room, so I willed light from my pentacle amulet, and got a good look at them.

Both were golden blond, both wore their hair long, and each one had a body that would have earned them a place in Penthouse Magazine, and a face that could have graced classier magazine covers. They wore only translucent— nearly transparent— Greco-Roman short robes, high-heeled sandals that laced up their calves, heavy bracelets with d-rings on them for conversion to manacles, and collars. Each had slightly elongated and very pointed ears, as well as eyebrows that swept gently upwards.

They blinked only about once every ten seconds, way less often than an average human— and they didn't react at all to the presence of a strange man, a strange woman, and a strange wooly mammoth— or at least half-dog, half wooly mammoth.

"Oh, crap," I sighed. I looked back and saw Cheryl and Mouse just inside the room, despite my having asked her to stay in the kitchen. I couldn't really blame her, strange place, scary circumstances. "Okay, I'm going to have to… to see if I can figure out what he did to them. I may… react strongly. Don't be scared, it's just… this is going to be ugly, and sometimes, that's hard to take."

"Can you… undo it? Maybe?"

"It may be repairable," I said slowly, "but I can tell you right now that I can't do the work. I'm all about raw power and throwing down with the nasty. If anything can be done for them, it's going to take a healer. Not my thing.

"Give me a second, here."

I used the Sight on them, saw what Glenn Corwin had done, and snarled "Empty _night,_ but I want this guy dead!"

There was nothing left of either young woman's actual personality. Each had been programmed to please Corwin (and each other, since that pleased him), and to be totally submissive to his slightest desire. They were, to all intents and purposes, sex dolls that happened to breathe.

"I don't think there's any help for them," I said, shaking my head and turning off my Sight. "Still, I'll make a call, get someone here who can—"

I heard a sound, the slightest scraping of shoe on linoleum, and I shut down the light from my amulet, whipped around towards the kitchen, motioned Cheryl to come towards me, and wondered what the hell was wrong with Mouse, that he hadn't warned me of an intruder.

Cheryl came towards me, and Mouse came with her. He glanced over his shoulder as he came, and his tail started wagging. What the hell…?

Maybe Molly had gotten my message from her mother, taken my instruction to "find me" literally, and used a tracking spell. Once Cheryl was close to my side, where I could protect her, I called, very softly, "Molly?"

For a moment, no reply came, and I heard no sound at all; then came hurried footsteps, and a man's shadow in the archway. I had my left hand up, ready to slam energy into my shield bracelet, when I heard, _"¡Madre de Dios!_ Harry! You're back! Where the hell have you been, dammit? You think I _like_ playing regional commander to the whole damned United States?"

Crap. This was not supposed to happen, not yet.

"Hey, Carlos, lighten up," I said, bringing my light back up to reveal Carlos Ramirez, Regional Commander of the Wardens of the White Council for the western half of the U.S.— and responsible for the whole magilla in my absence. "You're big enough to ride my dinosaur, you're big enough to do my job, okay?"

Carlos laughed aloud, strode forward, and embraced me like a long-lost brother, thumping me on the back and grinning like a madman. We'd been friends since the night we met, and he'd ridden a zombie-Tyrannosaurus Rex that I'd animated to ride and use against some deeply nasty necromancers who were trying to kill a whole bunch of people so that they could become gods.

"Where the hell have you been, man?" Carlos asked as he gripped my shoulders and looked me over. "I was actually starting to worry, 'mano."

"It's a long, long story, Carlos," I said, shaking my head and grinning at him. "You won't believe a lot of it, but that's okay, I brought proof.

"Listen, this young lady here? She's been a captive of the warlock that lives here, and I'd like to get her clear.

"What brings you here, anyway, man?"

"The Gatekeeper," Carlos said with a roll of his eyes. "He sent me a message, said that there was a warlock here that would take more than the local wardens— he even _pluralized it,_ man— could handle alone. He said the guy's bad and nasty, and he said something that maybe you can make sense of, cause I couldn't."

"Tell me," I said, thinking that Wizard Rashid, called 'the Gatekeeper,' one of the Senior Council, had rarely done anything but help me.

"He said that this kid was like cells. I tried to reach him to ask about that, and he just… wasn't available." Carlos shook his head and sighed. "With the warlock not actually living here any more, it could be hard to find him."

"Not living here…?" I asked, puzzled, even as I solved the puzzle of 'like cells,' though I kept the answer to myself for the moment.

"Oh, come _on,_ Warden Dresden," Carlos said, giving me a look that said I'd gotten old and senile. "You're standing there in the light of your magic, inside what's supposed to be a home. Threshold? Not invited in? Why else do you have magic right now, if the guy hasn't abandoned this place as his home?"

Oh. Right. I'd been so mad that I hadn't realized that. Duh!

"Crap," I sighed, and admitted, "you got me, Carlos."

"No surprise there," Carlos said. He tilted his head sideways at Cheryl and said, "Who's your friend?"

"Oh, sorry," I said. I turned to see Cheryl Guildford standing and watching Carlos and I as though we were insane, but not dangerous, her hand resting lightly on Mouse's back. "Carlos Rivera, wizard, meet Cheryl Guildford, former prisoner of the warlock that lived here."

They shook hands, and I was surprised to see Carlos do no more than glance at her appreciatively, rather than start the usual subtle staring and unconscious preening that he did in the presence of a beautiful woman that he didn't _know_ was attached to someone else romantically. Cheryl, on the other hand, gave Carlos a long, appreciative looking-over.

"Hey, 'Los, this is bad," I told him. "There are a couple of corpses in the basement— looks like this Corwin kid is a wannabe biomancer. He tried to make one into a bird-woman, and the other into a cat-woman. Neither survived his attempts."

"Shit." Carlos looked sad and angry as he sighed. "Okay. So, any ideas on how to find the guy?"

"I have a couple of ideas," I admitted, nodding. "The guy's moved, sure, but not long ago, and he still comes back here, obviously. And if his biomancy— or the sex with the two living sex toys on the couch— gets messy, he probably showers here. And uses the bed. Also, he's probably not aware of tracking spells. All we have to do is find a hair too short and pale to be one of theirs—" I indicated the two mentally-destroyed women. "—and odds are I can track the guy with it."

"You want I should try to get help for those two?" Carlos asked, indicating Corwin's sex slaves.

"I… don't know if anyone can help them," I said, sighing and wiping a hand across my mouth in distaste. "But maybe Wizard Listens-to-Wind can do something, or the Gatekeeper himself, they're both big on the healing magics.

"Thing is… Carlos, I can't be here, and I hope that you can do this without mentioning me to them. Sounds like maybe Wizard Rashid knows I'm back, and is keeping it to himself. I need to stay quiet for a while yet, if I can."

"What's up, Harry?" Carlos asked, looking worried and a little apprehensive.

"I'll explain in a bit," I assured him. "Right now, I'm going to check for usable hair or something to track this shithead with, then take the young lady home and head back to my new office." I handed Carlos one of my cards, and said, "Meet me here as soon as you can. If I'm not there, go around to the side and ring the bell labeled number eight, and I'll let you in. I'll explain everything then, I promise."

"Okay, Harry," Carlos said, nodding. "Go on, man. I'll see to these two.

"Hey, if you see Molly, tell her I'm in town, but it's business for now, would you?"

I raised an eyebrow at Carlos, and said (with as much innuendo as I could cram into my voice), "Aaaaaaah. Yes, of course. 'Business for now,' huh? Innnnteresting."

Carlos actually blushed as he glared at me and said, "Shut up, old man. Just tell her."

"I will," I said, smirking openly. "I'll tell her— just to see if she blushes as much as you do."

"Get out of here, old man, before I decide to arrest you on charges of being an unbearable smartass," Carlos said, trying to scowl around an incipient smile.

"Later, Carlos," I said, and went looking for the bedroom. I found it, found a man's pocket comb with several short, pale, blond hairs in it, and wrapped it in my handkerchief to preserve those hairs. I came to the living room to find Carlos on the phone— fortunately, an older model— presumably talking to someone at the White Council's HQ in Edinburgh, and Cheryl waiting by the back door with Mouse.

I took her home— she lived in an apartment complex about a mile from Glenn Corwin's house— told her that she should be safe, but to stay inside and invite no strangers in for any reason for the next two or three days, gave her a card so she could call if she had any trouble, and went to my office.

Carlos came in about an hour after I got there, dropped into a chair across from my desk, accepted a cold can of Coke, and said, "Wizard Listens-to-Wind has taken them to Edinburgh. He says they aren't likely to respond to treatment, but that's not the same as saying they won't respond, so he's going to try."

"Sounds like him," I nodded, approving. "How is he? I know he got sick with the disease Arianna Ortega spread throughout Council headquarters."

"He's in pretty good shape," Carlos said, nodding. "Still a little too skinny, but he's putting it back on slowly.

"Now, why are you hiding out, Harry?"

Same old Carlos— not easily distracted from the important stuff.

"This is, as I said, gonna be hard to believe," I told him, sitting up and sipping from my Coke. "Fact is, Carlos, I really was dead— and I want to stay quiet until I find the son-of-a-bitch responsible for that and either kill them deader than hell or put them in jail— depending on whether they're magical or mortal."

Carlos stared at me for a long moment. He knew me pretty well, knew I wouldn't tell him I'd been dead if I hadn't been, or at least if I hadn't _believed_ I had been. After a moment, he said, very, very softly, "You want to tell me how you came back, Dresden? Strikes me that could be really, really handy in our business."

"I'll tell you, 'Los," I said, nodding. "It's just that I don't think it'll help you."

I told him everything. His eyes went wide with shock when I told him about Maggie, and I could see his mind working, turning over why I hadn't told him about her and asked for his help right away. Then the look of hurt, upset that I hadn't trusted him with the knowledge of my kid, cleared, and I knew that he'd figured it out for himself; I couldn't have told him in the Edinburgh HQ, certainly not with Arianna Ortega there, and probably not even if she hadn't been. There were too many wizards there who just plain didn't like me, if any of them found out about her, she'd be in danger.

When I got to the part about meeting Buffy, Xander and Dawn in the Nevernever, Carlos's eyes gleamed with delight, and he actually interrupted me to say, "Damn, I wish you'd met her before we went after those two White Court vampire assholes who were playing serial killer, Harry. We could have used her that night!"

"You're telling me!" I agreed, and went on with the story.

When I told Carlos that Maggie was with the Carpenters, staying with them, but that I could and did see her several times a week, he understood something important. He understood that I trusted him completely, and that wiped away any sting from my not having told him initially.

"Damn, Harry," Carlos said when I'd finished the tale. He raised his Coke to me. "Man, that's— you're pretty damned lucky, _'mano,_ and no mistake."

"I'll drink to that," I said. "So, you and me against the warlock?"

"And Molly, once she checks in," Carlos said, shaking his head. "Harry, she's gotten scary-good at using what magic she knows best offensively, and never mind that it isn't exactly the sort most people think of as offensive magic. Add in that she's a defensive genius, and I want her along."

"Uh-huh," I said, and smirked at him. "And never mind that after the business part of the night is over, you can—"

"Would you shut up?" Carlos asked, blushing again. "I mean, seriously, man, what are you, twelve?"

"Thirteen," I corrected with dignity. I grinned at him, and said, "In all seriousness, Carlos… I approve. You guys make a good couple."

"Yeah, well," Carlos said, smiling and looking pretty darned happy. "When it comes time to meet her mother, will you come along? After all the stories you told me about the lady, I want backup."

"You bet," I said. "She's mellowed, anyway.

"Hey, look, I'm getting kind of—"

The street door to the outer office jingled, and I leaned sideways to see the reason I'd been about to tell Carlos that I was worried stroll in. Murphy saw me, nodded, and came to the office. She saw Carlos, smiled— then looked at me worriedly.

"It's okay, Murph," I said, waving her to the other chair. "I ran into him on the job, and he understands about my wanting to keep a low profile."

"Good," Murphy said, shaking Carlos's hand when he stood up. She sat and said to me, "I got the Fowlers on a plane to Buffalo, watched it until it was out of sight. What have you found out?"

I sketched out my evening for her, and when I said something about Rashid saying that this kid was 'like cells,' Murphy looked as puzzled as Carlos had.

"I know what he meant, and it's not good," I told her and Carlos. "Murphy, you remember the guy that Helen Beckitt and her hubby were working with to make the three-eye drug so they could destroy Marcone?"

"Yes, it was— oh." She looked thoughtful. "You think this Wizard Rashid meant that this warlock is like Victor Sells?"

"I do," I said, nodding regretfully. "Which proves that Rashid knows I'm back, knew that Carlos would run into me, and I'd tell Carlos about that asshole— and how I'm pretty damned certain that Sells was trained up to the point where he'd be seriously powerful, a real threat… by the Black Council."

"Crap," Carlos said, flopping back in his chair and sighing harshly at the ceiling. "That bunch of _pendejos_ again?"

" 'Fraid so, man," I said, sighing myself. "So basically? This is gonna be an ugly fight, once we find him, which, now that Murphy's here, I'm up for."

I stood, walked out of my office, and almost walked into Dawn, who was coming my way holding a sheaf of printed papers.

"Harry, I'm glad I caught you," Dawn said, and I saw that she looked worried, and maybe a little sick. "I found that guy's profile online, but it's old, and I didn't find any fiction links, not at first. It looks like the guy wasn't so high up the ladder as you were, and could use a computer, or at least he used to be able too. He had a Facebook page, and it was pretty… weird, and who's your friend and why is he staring at me?"

"Sorry," Carlos said, and looked away, even as I chuckled and said, "Carlos Ramirez, Warden of the White Council, meet Dawn Sinclair, Watcher. Dawn, Carlos is a friend, and he knows not to broadcast that I'm back.

"And he's staring because he knows who you are and where you're from. Well, that and because you're kinda gorgeous, you know."

"Uh, thanks," Dawn said, smiling and blushing. "Hello, Warden Ramirez. Molly and I have gotten to be pretty close, so I know she'll be glad to see you."

Which made it Carlos's turn to blush. It was cute.

"Enough with the blushing," I said, but I was laughing as I said it, and they both glared cheerfully at me. "What did you find out, Dawn?"

"I did find some fiction, but I had to dig— he had his Facebook page linked to a Yahoo profile, that linked to an 'adult' social network site, and then from there to another, more… uh, more adult, and more slimy adult network, and there I found links to his fiction, which is hosted on an adult website that permits… well, if someone gets turned on by it, it seems to be allowed, and some of the categories, even, may give me nightmares, and okay, never mind that.

"Harry, all his stories there are about mind control, altering women from the 'lesser, human race' into elves, and even into more… uh, disturbing things. Animalistic races, and— and there was a bit in the last one, where he seems to have gone from 'story' to 'journal entry' or something…." She trailed off and flipped through pages for a moment, then said, "Here it is. A bit where he was 'noticed by a God who granted me more power than even I dreamed existed, and set me to my true work; returning the elves, my people, to the rule of the Earth, beginning in this squalid city where I have been imprisoned and laughed at.

" 'I will destroy them all, make them over in my own image, and I will begin with the women, for I would plant my seed, that the race of Elves will continue even should I fall to the Wardens.' "

"Okay, so he's a serious nutburger." I shook my head and sighed. "Thanks, Dawn. That's a definite help. Anything else?"

"Just one thing, and I don't know if it helps much," Dawn said, and riffled through the papers for a moment. "Here it is. He's moved— you look like you knew that— and he doesn't say where, exactly, but he does mention a couple things… here. 'I find it amusing to live in what once was squalor, and now is finery.' And later, he says, 'the moon in the lake is beautiful, and it inspires me— I will go make my concubines tonight, though I dare not house them here.' That was at the end of the last story he posted, which was almost four weeks ago."

"Okay, sounds like he's somewhere on or near the Gold Coast," I said, referring to the swankiest part of Chicago proper. "Near is more likely."

"Possibly one of the nicer places that have gone up where Cabrini-Green used to be," Murphy said, nodding her agreement. "The bit about squalor becoming finery would fit that."

"Good call, Karrin," I said, nodding at her. "Okay, let me try the tracking spell anyway— he doesn't have to be at home, after all."

I had a corner of my office actually set aside for small workings, had made a circle there by having a twined band of copper, silver and iron set into the floor. It wasn't near as nice as the one I'd lost when my old place burned to the ground— that one had tiny runes inscribed all around each of the three bands, and had cost me a fortune— but it was plenty for most works, and, once I was ready to 'go public' again, I could have it upgraded.

I took off my coat, sat in the circle, and did a basic tracking spell while Carlos went to the window and looked out at the street (he'd seen this, done it himself enough that it wasn't at all interesting to him) while Murphy and Dawn watched, and Murph, who'd seen me do this particular kind of spell at least a dozen times, kept up a quiet running commentary for Dawn, who watched in fascination.

I'd decided to actually go for a location this time, not just a direction, so I borrowed a trick from Mortimer Lindquist, an ectomancer I know. I had a map of Chicago spread out just outside my circle, and a tiny vial of copper dust— copper reacts well to magic— inside with me. When I broke the circle and released my will and the magic I'd gathered, I upended the vial, and the copper dust got snatched out of the air and tugged towards the map.

By the time I got to my feet and moved over to look down at the map, there was a tiny little ball of copper filings on the map, and it moved slowly along one of the streets on the map. I bent closer, careful not to touch the map, and watched as the ball proceeded east on Cullerton, towards the lake. When I announced that to the room, Murphy snapped, "Shit!"

"What?" I asked, worried. Murphy isn't one to overreact.

"Cullerton towards the lake means he's going towards Calumet," Murphy said, starting for her own office. "Fowler lives on Calumet, half a block north of Cullerton! How far is he from Calumet?"

"About six blocks, dammit," I said, straightening. "Carlos, you're with me. Murphy may need to be able to use her phone, so we let her drive herself.

"Dawn, call your sister on her cell, let her know trouble's heading her way, but that we're on the way. And tell her to be damned careful if the kid gets there before us, he's got some scary crap up his sleeve. If she wants to take Fowler and leave, that's fine, even preferable, tell her to call Murphy with where she's going."

"On it," Dawn said, reaching for the phone on my desk.

"Karrin, Carlos rides with me, so you can rely on your cell phone," I called. "Load up, Murph— this kid is a warlock, and he's got mind control and biological magic on his side. Take those things Molly made for you!"

"Already carrying them," Murphy called from her office. "I'll be right behind you."

(Since Murphy had been working with the Alphas and Molly to cover the town against threats from the supernatural while I'd been gone, Molly had made a couple of fairly simple, low-powered talismans for Karrin. One simply made Murphy more stealthy than she could already be, dulling any sounds she made, and increasing the depths of shadow around her. The other, though, was a general-purpose personal ward; it'd never stop the sort of magic that Carlos and I throw around, the loud, dangerous, flashy stuff like bolts of flame, lightning, or, in Carlos's case, pure entropy. But it would help against magic aimed at Karrin's mind or body, at least a little. Hopefully, it would help _enough_.)

Carlos and I piled into Captain Midnight, and he grinned in appreciation of the car again as I started off towards the lake.

"Harry, this car… you know, I kinda hope you need my help sometime when it's warmer— just so I can ride on the running boards while we go to the threat." I laughed and nodded, and Carlos added, "You let me do that one time, I'll drive next time so you can ride the boards."

"It could happen," I allowed. "Listen, this kid's pretty freaking scary, and I've never fought a biomancer before. You?"

"Once," Carlos said, nodding glumly. "Kinda sucked. Kid made me so sleepy I could barely move, and when I got past that, he gave me freaking hives all over. The itching was crazy, I could barely concentrate to cast a spell. It may not seem like much—"

"No, I get it," I told him. "The little stuff isn't so little, not when it affects your concentration.

"The mind magic— I got the new course on that after… after Morgan died. Wizard McCoy put me through it, made sure I had it down pat before he relaxed. You?"

"Captain Luccio ran most of us through it," Carlos said, nodding. "The Gatekeeper trained the rest of them, so it'd get done right away."

"Good." I sighed, glanced sideways at Carlos and said, "I'm glad I ran into you tonight, Carlos. Seriously."

"Don't go getting all mushy on me, Dresden," Carlos said— but he grinned and nodded as he said it. "You'll make me wanna vomit or something."

"No, you're tougher than that," I assured him. "I mean, I've seen you look in a mirror without vomiting, so…."

"Smartass."

"Damned straight."

I drove in silence for a while, and soon enough, I made the turn onto Cullerton, headed for the Lake as fast as I dared. (Captain Midnight was a BIG car, and he had mass enough that I didn't dare go too fast, for fear of not being able to stop when I needed to.)

We saw the warlock as we got within a couple of blocks of Calumet, and we both stared in disbelief as he crossed Prairie, a block before Calumet, and passed under the street light there.

The kid had done something to himself, obviously. His ears were pointed, he was slender and compact, but moved with a grace that didn't seem human. But that wasn't what made us stare.

What made us stare were the half a dozen… _things_ that walked along behind him, like baby ducks following their mother.

They came in pairs, two of each thing, and some part of me that wasn't busy being horrified and nauseated decided that they were probably paired male and female, so that they could reproduce— not like that was likely at all, I doubted the kid could make biological adjustments on the genetic level.

But then again, maybe he could. Who the hell could tell?

The two creatures at the back of this little parade were based off of lions— I could tell that much from the shapes, and the way one of them had a mane. It's just that you don't expect to see lions covered in what looked like porcupine quills, only wider than quills, so they could have nasty-sharp edges as well as points.

In front of them walked a pair of things that looked like someone had taken a mongoose and crossed it with a freaking _rhinoceros_. The things stood about four and a half feet at the shoulder, were covered in thick, leathery hide like a rhino, yet moved along in that somehow graceful-yet-bouncy gait that was typical of a mongoose.

The front pair… they were the kind of thing that no one ever wants to see once, let alone twice.

Take a big, powerful primate like, oh, the Mountain Gorilla. Then cross it with something feline— like a jaguar, or maybe a leopard. Make it walk mostly upright, knuckling along on all fours only occasionally, give it spots on its fur— but make all four 'paws' into 'hands,' complete with opposable thumbs— and large, exaggerated claws, like a big cat's, only _bigger_.

"Holy crap," I said softly as I let Captain Midnight decelerate. "How the hell did he do that? How did he— that's not possible!"

"Apparently, it is," Carlos muttered. He gulped then said, "Well, we should probably get in front of him. You know, between him and this client of yours."

"Right," I said, and accelerated past the warlock and his menagerie, not looking his way. "And we should probably hope like hell that Murphy brought along a couple of assault rifles. Or a rocket launcher. I'd even take hand grenades."

"I got a couple of grenades," Carlos said, patting a largish pouch on his web belt. "But I hate to use them in a residential area."

"I hear that. But if it comes down to it, we may have to. I've never seen anything even remotely like that."

I shuddered as I made the turn onto Calumet, and I looked at house numbers. Larry Fowler lived in a very nice brick house that was sandwiched in between two others, with less than a foot between the walls of the houses. There wasn't really a yard out front— I hoped for the sake of the kids he'd mentioned that he had a back yard for them to play in— just a square of not-concrete that had a trio of evergreen trees growing in it, close to the house, and some other, now-beginning-to-awaken-from-dormancy plants in front of those. The house itself looked solid, sturdy, and kind of like a castle with stunted growth. On each of the two front corners of the house were round towers, like on a castle, and the place probably ran a half a million dollars or so.

"I hope he has homeowner's insurance," I muttered as I parked across the street from Fowler's baby castle. I saw the company car that Buffy had apparently taken sitting at the curb right in front of the house, and swore. I'd hoped she'd take Fowler and leave, but apparently, she'd decided to stay.

"Okay, Carlos— I don't think there's any way to do this that doesn't result in people seeing it." I took a deep breath and added, "Corwin must be doing something… maybe empathic, maybe… I don't know. Something that keeps people from calling the cops, maybe even makes them forget what they're seeing.

"But he'll probably have to drop that to fight. So… we're gonna have bystanders. And probably cops. Hell, maybe SI— Special Investigations, the branch of the CPD that Murphy used to work for."

"Think they'd be able to help?" Carlos asked, looking hopeful.

"Maybe with the critters, and almost for sure with crowd control— but if we call them in, some of them are gonna get hurt or killed." I closed my eyes for a moment, then shook it off. "No matter— we can't do it, neither of us has a phone.

"Murphy will be here any second— she'll call them if she thinks it's a good idea. We'll have to leave it at that."

"All right, so it's you and me on the Legolas wannabe." Carlos grinned fiercely and pulled a glove out of his belt, a heavy leather thing covered with steel plates. The gauntlet produced a shield of entropic energy that could, with a little extra energy shoved into it, be used as a weapon of sorts. "I'm ready to roll. You got everything?"

"Everything I've had time to re-make," I said, and I stepped out of Captain Midnight. I got my staff out of the back seat, took my blasting rod out of its holster, and stood ready with the staff in my right hand and the rod in my left. I shook out my shield bracelet, also on my left hand, and glanced over to see Carlos with his staff in his right hand, his shield gauntlet on his left, his Warden's sword (one of the last ones made by Captain Luccio before she was forced into a new body by a necromancer, and lost the ability to make them, at least until she could retrain herself) hanging from his belt, and a little smile on his face. I sighed and said, "You know, sometimes I think you like this part of the job too much. Other times, I _know_ you like this part too much."

"Oh, I'm sorry, Warden Dresden," Carlos said, his eyes on the corner where Corwin should appear any second. "I'll stop liking the idea of kicking bad-guy ass and get old before my time so I can be just like you— but not until after this fight's over, okay?"

"Hey, I'm supposed to be the smartass on this team," I complained. "Get your own shtick!"

Carlos laughed aloud— and we both turned to look at Fowler's house when we heard the door open. I opened my mouth to tell Buffy to hurry up and get Fowler away before Corwin came around the corner— and stopped with my mouth open.

Buffy came out alone, dressed in the leather-and-plastic armor that she'd been wearing when I met her in the Nevernever, and sat down on the steps of Fowler's house. She had a big cloth shopping bag with her, and she set it down beside her, pulled out a bottle of diet Coke (I couldn't break her of that particular evil habit, just like I couldn't break Murphy of it— neither one of them ever carries an ounce of extra weight that I can see, and yet they live on Evil Coke), took the top off and took a swig. Then she pulled a pack of bubble gum out of the bag, took out a piece, and started chewing.

She never even looked at me and Carlos, despite us being right across the street from her.

I had no idea what she thought she was doing, but I still couldn't help but grin at how completely casual she seemed to be.

Then Corwin came around the corner, and Buffy looked right at me and made a motion like she was flipping something down in front of her face. I didn't get it, but fortunately, Carlos did.

"She wants us to veil ourselves," Carlos said, his voice full of disbelief. "Is she crazy?"

"Could be, but she's been at this a long, long time, 'Los," I said, and drew up my will for a veil. "I'll get visual, you get the other senses."

"Okay, but I don't care if she is the slayer, this is _loco,_ Harry."

"Maybe so," I said, but I gave him my best crazy grin, and hit him with a Spanish phrase he'd used on me a few times. _"Loco como un zorro, hermano._

"Crazy like a fox!"

So we sat and we watched as Glenn Corwin and his parade of monstrosities came up Calumet Avenue, and Buffy sat on the steps of Larry Fowler's house, chewing gum and occasionally blowing a bubble.

When Glenn Corwin reached the house, he stopped facing it— and simply stared at Buffy for a long moment.

"Hey," Buffy said casually, nodding at Corwin. "Nice costume, but Halloween's not for seven months or so."

Glenn Corwin had on black leather pants, a gray leather shirt cut peasant-style, complete with laces from the bottom of the sternum to the collar (undone, of course), a white cotton vest over the shirt, unbuttoned, black riding boots, and a swordbelt, complete with a long, straight, basket-hilted European saber.

"It's not a costume," Corwin said, his voice surprisingly pleasant. "It is who I am.

"Where is Larry Fowler?"

"Heck if I know." Buffy sat up and put one elbow on one knee, propped her chin on her fist, and asked, "Did it hurt to do that to your ears?"

"What? No, it didn't, I simply suspended nerve activity there while making the changes," Corwin said, now sounding a little flustered. "This is Larry Fowler's house, is it not?"

"Sure is," Buffy said, still sitting there like the Thinker. "You know, the eyebrows? A bit too much on the upsweep. Makes you look kinda gay. Not that there's anything wrong with being gay, but the rest of your look is pretty macho, so maybe you should work on those a little."

Over by Captain Midnight, Carlos and I were struggling so hard not to laugh at this exchange that I almost didn't see one of the upstairs windows ease open about a foot, and a rifle barrel ease out of it. Couldn't see much behind the barrel but a dark shape, but it was also a small one— Murphy had apparently parked elsewhere, and gotten into the house from another direction.

"So… you don't know where Larry Fowler is?" Glenn Corwin asked again. Buffy shook her head, and Corwin shook his head in irritation. "Then what are you doing here, human? And why are _you_ dressed for Halloween?"

"I'm here because I'm one of the people he hired to protect him," Buffy said, sitting up straight and smiling a sunny-yet-dangerous smile. "When I got the call that you were headed this way, I sent Mr. Fowler off in a cab with specific instructions not to tell me where he was going— because you're what we're supposed to protect him from."

"We?" Corwin said, and looked around— but not up, not at all. "Who, exactly, is there besides yourself to face me?"

You know, I'd been with Carlos the last time I'd heard a straight line that good, too. Must be something to do with him.

He and I had the same idea, and we both dropped our veils at the same time. Since I was planning on not officially being here, Carlos was the one who virtually _roared,_ "Glenn Randall Corwin! You are accused of violating the first, second, third and fourth laws of magic, and of being a warlock! Surrender now and save yourself a great deal of pain and humiliation!"

Corwin spun to face us, as did his pets, and he laughed aloud, and said, "Human wizards! You truly think you can defeat me and my pets? But you bring a girl to the fight, and she is no wizard— are you stupid?"

"No," I said, wincing at the thought of how Buffy was going to react to that statement. "But I'm pretty sure you are."

"And what makes you think that I'm stupid!" Corwin snarled, his chin thrusting itself out and his chest puffing up.

"You shouldn't turn your back on an opponent," Buffy said— from right behind him.

She'd walked up to stand maybe a foot from him while he was talking to Carlos and I, and when he spun around to face her, she simply gave him a roundhouse to the jaw that sent him sprawling in the street.

Even as his creatures made various hostile sounds and started to move, most for me and Carlos, but the two gorilla-cats for Buffy, I heard her say, "And you shouldn't call me a _girl!"_

Then the first of Corwin's critters reached me and Carlos, and it got violent.


	10. Chapter 10

_Interlude: Medford, Oregon_

Sandra Coleman hated the coma ward, but she needed extra shifts, and Silver Oaks Private Hospital needed extra hands in the coma ward.

There were only ten patients in what the hospital administrators, all too aware of public image and political correctness, called the Somnolent Care Ward, and the doctors and nurses called the coma ward. The work wasn't that hard, but something about all of those people just lying there, sleeping their lives away— or worse, empty shells kept alive by too-hopeful families— gave Sandra the creeps.

She moved down the line of private rooms, entered each one, checked the patient's chart, IV, support and monitoring devices, stepped out of each room, shuddered lightly, and went to the next.

Everything was fine until the sixth room. Jennifer Calder, age twenty-two, had been here for most of four years, after the small plane crash that had killed her parents and left her comatose. The family had been wealthy, so their lawyer arranged for the kind of care provided only by private facilities like Silver Oaks, care more advanced than turning the patient every few hours to prevent bed sores. Here, physical therapists worked each patient's arms, legs, shoulders, hips, neck and back every single day.

Jennifer looked healthy, if too pale and too slender, but Sandra knew better; this one wasn't just in a coma, she was in what the medical profession called a 'persistent vegetative state.' Her brain was dead, or at least the parts of it that actually thought was. The parts that kept the heart beating, the lungs pumping, all the things necessary for the body to live, those worked. But there was no chance of this girl ever waking up; her brain was effectively dead.

Which is why, when Jennifer Calder said, "May I have a drink, please?" in a sandy, deathly-dry scratch of a voice, Sandra jumped a full three feet into the air and let out a small scream that would have been a big one, if her throat hadn't locked up in terror.

"Sorry," said the girl, her voice still sounding like a horror-film zombie. "Didn't mean… sorry. But so _thirsty_…."

Sandra managed to speak, finally, though she couldn't make herself go to the bed and look at the girl's face. "I'll… get a doctor. He may not want you to have a drink just yet, you've been…."

"In a coma for a while?" the girls said, her voice quieter, less raspy. "Yeah. I know. Okay. Get a doctor, please, miss."

Sandra managed not to run out of the room— but once she was out of sight of the bed, she broke into a run for the nurse's station, where her friend Anne took one look at her and said, "My god, Sandra, what happened? Is one of the patients dead?"

"No," Sandra gasped, her voice shaky and wild. "No, it's— Jennifer Calder, four-oh-six, she— she's _awake_."

"What?" Anne looked confused. "Sandra, you must have the wrong room, she's brain-dead, has been for—"

"She's awake!" Sandra said, her voice edgy, as though she were barely managing not to scream. "Get a doctor, she's awake and wants a drink!"

Anne stared for a second longer, then picked up the phone and paged Dr. Bernard, the neurologist on duty.

In her room, the woman who was not Jennifer Calder smiled to herself and said, very, very softly, "I'm coming, Harry Dresden."

_Harry:_

When Buffy decked Glenn Corwin, all six of his animals went into hostile mode immediately. The two gorilla-cat-things went straight for Buffy, and the other four started for Carlos and I. For a second, it looked as though there might be a fight over which of the things got to attack which of us, but that didn't happen. Instead, the male of the quilled lions leaped at me while the female went for Carlos— and the two armored mongooses went around as though to flank us or hit us from behind.

Carlos and I might have practiced our response, it was so fluid and solid. I threw my shield up in front of the two of us, using only the kinetic aspect of the focus in order to preserve energy. While I did that, Carlos stepped back behind me and fired a bolt of entropic magic at the mon-rhino on my side. As both lions hit my shield, staggering me backwards but not knocking me down, I leveled my staff at the mon-rhino on Carlos's side and snarled "Forzaré!"

Both of the mon-rhinos dodged our attacks, but they also didn't attack us right then, which was all to the good.

"Drop your shield on three!" Carlos cried, and moved to kneel in front of me. He brought his gauntlet up, whispered a word in some language I didn't know, and what looked to be a thin layer of bright green Jello poured out of the gauntlet and molded itself to the half-dome of faint blue light that was my kinetic shield. "One, two… three!"

I dropped my shield just as the male quilled lion leaped again, and it hit Carlos's shield of pure entropy claws first— and Carlos and I took a bath in finely pureed critter as it dissolved and poured through the entropy field. All of it, it had a lot of mass and even more momentum behind it.

"You're paying for dry cleaning the coat!" I spat around a mouthful of disgusting gunk.

"No problem," Carlos agreed. "Just do something about the mongoose-things while I keep the lioness off of us!"

Before I could even answer, the nearer of the two mon-rhinos leapt straight at me, and it was so fast that I barely had time enough to think my shield back up. Claws scrabbled uselessly at the vertical half-dome of my shield, and I heard movement behind me as well, more scrabbling claws, this time on asphalt. I looked around, aimed my staff at the bounding mon-rhino trying to pounce on my back, and yelled again, "Forzaré!"

This time, I caught the thing in mid-leap, and it couldn't dodge the way it had my first attack. It tried, and it twisted part way out of the way, but I still caught it on one side of the chest, which flung it back and away from me. When it landed, it didn't seem real eager to get back up— and it didn't really get the chance.

As the thing lifted its head from the asphalt and looked hatred at me, I heard a single sharp cracking sound— like a good, solid hit in a baseball game when you're close to home plate— and the thing's head pretty much exploded.

"Murphy must've made a silencer for the rifle," Carlos said as he turned to check on me, having destroyed the quilled lioness with several bolts of entropy. "Nice. Doesn't sound like a gunshot.

"Hey, you need help with the giant mongoose, Harry?"

"No, I got this," I assured Carlos. "Can you see how Buffy's doing?"

"Not really— but the way the two gorilleopards are staggering around, I'm pretty sure she's okay." Carlos snorted laughter and said, "I like her style. 'And you shouldn't call me a girl,' that was great."

I didn't have time to acknowledge the statement, because I had a snarling, spitting, ferocious whatsit trying to claw through my shield and eat my face. Apparently, it thought I had killed it's pal, or mate, or whatever, and it wasn't happy about that. The thing was clawing at my shield so fast and furiously that my shield bracelet was starting to heat up a little— not enough to burn me, but enough to be noticeable.

I dropped my staff, took my blasting rod from my left hand, reached over the shield, shoved the tip of the rod into the mon-rhino's face and snarled "Fuego!"

A beam of bright orange fire as thick as my wrist jetted forth from the blasting rod, and suddenly, we were treated to the smell of cooked monster— not a very pleasant smell, but then, it wasn't shaping up to be a pleasant night, what with being coated in the remains of another monster and all.

"Okay, that's it for the critter commandos," I said, straightening up and letting my shield lapse. I looked around to find Carlos walking slowly, casually, in the direction of Buffy and her fight. Even as I started to follow him, one of the gorilleopards landed a blow on Buffy's shoulder, sent her spinning to the ground. She rolled to land on her back, and as the other gorilleopard leapt at her, Buffy pulled her knees to her chin, rolled back on her shoulders, and kicked the thing in the gut as it arced down towards her.

As the gorilleopard flew upwards from the power of her kick, Buffy yelled "Pull!"

A single shot came from the upstairs window, again sounding more like a home-run hit than a gunshot, and the thing's face disintegrated on one side as Murphy shot it at the top of its flight.

Buffy kipped neatly to her feet, watched in amusement as the last of Corwin's creatures looked around uneasily. Then, with a nearly human grumbling sigh, the thing leapt at Buffy, clawed hands out to rake and rip.

Buffy took a long, low step, her back leg actually dragging the ground, and I saw her arm piston out in front of her, hand clenched in a fist so small that it made the force more deadly, concentrating it into a smaller space. She punched the thing right below its ribcage— you could see where the ribs stopped, because of it's rather peculiar build— and all of the air went out of the creature as it folded across her arm. It lay on the ground, rocking a little and trying to breathe— until Buffy, moving quickly to prevent it from recovering, stomp-kicked its neck, killing it.

"Nice work," Carlos said, grinning. "I think I want fighting lessons."

"Buffy, Carlos Ramirez, a Warden of the White Council," I said, waving in his direction. "Carlos, Buffy Sinclair, whose title shall remain unspoken.

"Hey, where the hell did Corwin go?"

The others looked around, too, and none of us saw him. He'd used the confusion of the fight to get away.

"No way," Buffy said, looking shocked. "He should've been unconscious for a _while_— I didn't pull my punch that much."

"Harry! Buffy! Across the street!" Karrin yelled from her position in the house.

We turned to look, and there, across the street and down a little, a couple of car lengths in front of Captain Midnight, stood Glenn Corwin, in the middle of what looked to be a hastily drawn magical diagram. Even as I started to move that way, raising my staff to send a bolt of force his way in hopes of knocking him down before he finished whatever-the-hell he was doing, Corwin shouted a short string of words that meant nothing to me, turned the hand he held cupped in front of him over, and spilled the blood he'd been cupping in that hand onto the diagram.

The whole thing flared up in brilliant, purple-blue light, and my force bolt ricocheted off to one side and shook a tree.

And inside the circle, which looked to be about twenty feet across, appeared eight figures, four armored in what looked like scale mail of some sort and carrying various and sundry weapons, and four wearing heavy black robes with cloaks and cowls, each holding a staff in one hand and a heavy dagger in the other.

"Oh, shit," I muttered. "This does not look good!"

The light faded from the circle, the eight guys— presumably, though some of the ones in the robes could have been girls, I guess— stepped out, and then the light came back, and Corwin started moving around the inside of the circle, making some sort of adjustments.

"Carlos, you and me on the robes," I said, taking command without thinking about it. I'd been doing this for longer than him, and while Buffy had been fighting monsters for as long as me or longer, she hadn't been doing it on this, my Earth, and things were different here. "Buffy, did you bring a melee weapon?"

"Of course," she said from behind me, and I glanced back to see her pull the Scythe out of the shopping bag she'd left on the steps. "I get the armored guys, right?"

"Bet on it," I said. "Just shout if you need help— we don't know what they can do."

"Gotcha, boss," Buffy said, and there was no sarcasm in her voice.

"Harry!" Murphy had come out the front door of Fowler's house, and there was no sign of the rifle she'd been using. "People are starting to come out and see what's going on— I've called SI, but it will take them a few minutes to get here."

"Do what you can with the crowd," I said, shaking my head in annoyance. "We'll try to keep the collateral damage down, but this kid's doing stuff I've never even _heard of_ before, Karrin. This is going to get ugly, I can pretty much guarantee it."

"Okay, I'll do what I can," Karrin sighed. She looked at me and sighed. "Be careful, all of you." She turned away and started walking down the street, headed for a knot of people standing in front of the house on the corner of Cullerton and Calumet, and called in a voice that expected to be obeyed, that had years of experience as a cop behind it, "All right folks, you need to get inside your homes and stay there— the situation is dangerous, and we're doing what we can to contain it, but you need to be inside."

"Thank god I hired her," I muttered as Carlos, Buffy and I walked down the street towards the eight people— were they people?— from Glenn Corwin's magic circle.

Maybe fifty feet separated us when the robed person in front raised his staff to the sky, said a single word, and sent a bolt of lightning up into the starry night.

I figured out what that meant in time to get my shield up and between us and him, and yank Buffy closer to Carlos and I.

A much, much bigger bolt of lightning came down on the same general path that the spell-caster's bolt had gone up, and struck the dagger that the man— I could see a hairy forearm, he was a man— carried, then fired out his staff and at us.

My shield held easily but the second one of the casters had stepped forward and her (a wind had come up, and was making her robe press against her in a fashion that revealed her to be a woman, and a nicely built one) staff was glowing with a red-orange light that I recognized. Even as lightning-boy stepped back to prep for another strike (thank god these people were amateurs), she sent a bolt of fire as big around as Buffy at me, and I barely got the shield's defense switched from electricity to heat in time.

"Buffy, go," I said, jerking my head at the two armored goons who were headed at us from her side. "Carlos, this kid's thinking in patterns, so the next one—"

"The next one's mine to shield, yeah," Carlos said, and he moved up to start forming his own shield behind my own again. "I really hate this kid, you know?"

"I know," I agreed as the third of the kid's enthralled spell-casters gestured, and a man-sized chink of street tore itself free of the ground and hovered in front of him. "Uh, no, not having that!"

I dropped to the street, rolled sideways, and aimed my staff at the person who'd ripped up the chunk of street, and was now throwing it at Carlos. I switched my aimed as best I could, given my hurry, and snapped "Forzaré!" A bolt of force tore down the street— and deflected the chunk of rock to one side, where it hit a tree and knocked it most of the way down, setting off the car alarm of the Mercedes sedan that had been parked under the tree.

I shifted aim to the caster who seemed to be using just earth magic, drew up my will to slap him with a gust of wind powerful enough to knock him down—

—and something hit me in the side, hard, sent me rolling across the street, and I cursed every time I rolled across the point where it had hit— it felt like whatever it was had cracked or broken a rib or two.

I looked back at where I'd been— and muttered a curse. I'd been hit with the cap off of a fire hydrant, apparently forced off its hydrant by an increase in water pressure caused by the last of the four spell-casters that Corwin had enslaved, or created, or whatever he'd done.

Also, the water from that hydrant was now gathering itself into a really, really big ball— it was already a good fifteen feet through the center— as it moved to position itself over Carlos.

Running water can ground out magic, even water magic, Carlos's specialty. I know, that sounds counter-intuitive, but it's true. If the caster dumped a lot of water on Carlos, it'd essentially ground out his running magics, and he'd be defenseless while he rebuilt things.

Carlos had his hands full with the fire and air casters (lightning is air magic, trust me, I use it), couldn't deal with water and earth (who had raised another chunk of asphalt to fling around).

I couldn't stop and worry about my ribs right now. I had to figure out how to help Carlos and stop the assholes attacking him.

"Okay, Harry," I muttered, "when all else fails— use their own weapons against them."

I never had been much with water magic, and most of the earth magic I knew was either not the sort of thing you used in a metropolitan area (suspending gravity over a large area for a couple of second in a city would be disastrous) or crossed over with my preferred element of fire (like making mini-volcanoes, also a bad idea in a residential area). Spirit— raw force— wasn't likely to work this time.

I gathered up my will, shaped it, and channeled it into my staff, released it at a point just past the now-twenty-five-foot-thick ball of water, and did my best to roar "Ventas servitas!" (As roars went, it wasn't much— but my ribs hurt, give me a break!)

A huge wind blew the ball of water back at the four gathered mages— and Carlos took care of the rest, sent a bolt of pure entropy through the middle of the ball, disrupting the magic that held it together.

All four of the enemy spell-casters got drenched in the resultant downpour, and lost all their active spells, had to call up their wills and start over.

Carlos and I didn't give them time. I wasn't moving so well, so I just sent bolts of force their way while Carlos, good and pissed by now, waded in with fists and feet. He wasn't Buffy, but he knew how to fight, and his targets didn't.

I managed to get to my feet and glanced over at Buffy, who had reduced her foes to a single large man with a bastard sword. She wasn't attacking to kill, she knew that this might well be some poor guy under mind control, so she used the Scythe strictly for defense, and you could see her opponent getting more and more frustrated as his sword blade met the red-and-silver metal of the Scythe every time he swung. His swings kept getting more and more wild— and suddenly, he screamed aloud, a thing of rage and frustration, and threw his sword at Buffy. It caught her completely by surprise, and actually hit her, a glancing blow one the side of the head with the flat of the blade— but it sent her to the ground.

Her opponent howled in victory, stepped forward—

—and screamed in agony as what seemed like every roman candle, spotlight and camera flash in the city of Chicago went of around his head in a long, painful series, accompanied by the sounds of sirens and screaming women, crying children and cats in the throes of heat.

I grinned, and didn't bother looking around, just said to the air, "About time you caught up with us, Molly!"

"Sorry, boss— Mom and Dad's anniversary is coming up, I was shopping for their present," Molly said from somewhere between me and Buffy. "I came as soon as Dawn filled me in."

Buffy climbed to her feet, shook her head to clear it, looked at her former opponent— now staggering around in circles as he tried to clear his vision and the ringing in his ears— snickered once, and knocked him unconscious with a single kick to the jaw.

"Thanks, Molly," Buffy called— and Molly finally became visible, then gave Buffy a sweeping bow.

"No problem," Molly said. She looked around at the mess on the street and said, "Boss, these people? All mind controlled. I checked. And this asshole, he's a combination of clumsy and uncaring… I don't think any of them will ever recover all the way, even with Injun Joe— I mean, Wizard Listens-to-Wind— even with him and the other healers helping.

"Carlos?"

"Warlock," Carlos said, shaking his head as he took one of Molly's hands in his and gave it a squeeze. "Harry, I know you don't like it, b—"

"This time, I get it, Carlos!" I snapped, my memory of the things Glenn Corwin had done to the women in his home intruding on my vision. I let Buffy help me to my feet, nodded my thanks to her, and added, "This time— I don't think I could swing the sword myself, but I'll damned well make myself watch when he's beheaded. I owe that much to the women he killed."

"You can't, Harry," Molly said, looking at me in sympathy. "The council will have to be notified, and you—"

"Want them to think I'm dead, yeah," I said, and dry scrubbed my face. "Hell. Okay. Well, I'll just have to be glad he's not hurting anyone else, and leave it at that."

"We probably ought to actually catch him first, Harry," Carlos pointed out.

"Details," I sighed, waving a hand at him. "Mere details.

"Let's sleep these eight, and then see what Corwin's up to next."

Carlos, Molly and I used the little bit of mind-magic that, while considered gray by the White Council, all of them have used at one time or another, and put Corwin's eight most recent victims into a deep, dreamless sleep that would last for hours, and even through serious noise and other potential distractions. Then we turned towards Corwin's big circle, still lit up with that weird, blue-purple light— and we froze.

"Oh, shit," Molly said in a very small voice. "Oh, shit, what… what are those things?"

"Nightmares," Carlos said, shivering visibly. "Fucking homemade nightmares."

I couldn't argue.

Corwin had filled his circle with… things. Monsters. Each of them was visibly a combination of two ordinary earthly creatures, but there were things in there that should never, ever have been _thought of,_ much less _made_.

Huge, scaly, purple-and-orange striped tigers, their fangs visibly dripping poison. Things that looked like baboons, only with the clear skin and muscles but visible nerves and circulatory system of a jellyfish, and stinger tendrils dangling off of their bodies in places. Small elephants with too many legs that had too many joints, and the odd, faceted eyes of spiders, as well as stingers on the ends of their trunks. Impossibly long ferrets, or maybe minks, with slit-pupiled snake's eyes, rattles on their tails and diamond patterns in their fur. Something that I thought might have started life as a polar bear, before Corwin crossed it with, or gave it features of, an alligator. (Or crocodile. Either way, it was a horror to look at.)

Worst were the men and women. Just three of each, and again in what were probably meant to be mated pairs.

One pair had been successfully given reptilian attributes— scales, backwards bent legs, tails, and clawed hands and feet— even fangs. Their scales were pink and lavender, and more hideous for being such innocuous colors.

One pair had the heavy, powerful bone structure and muscle of bears, as well as the mass and the fur— and the claws and teeth.

The last… were somehow the worst. At first I couldn't get a handle on their more bestial features, couldn't understand what they'd been crossed with— then something about the way the female moved went "click" inside my head, and I made a sound of disgust.

The last two had chitin, not skin, and had a ruddy cast to their chitin. Their arms and legs had visible serrations on the chitin there, their eyes protruded from their sockets slightly, and moved independently of each other. Their hands… two heavy fingers and an opposable thumb, yet still they resembled the claws of some sort of crab. He'd crossed people with some sort of _crab_.

"I think," Carlos said, his voice low and furious, "that I may _volunteer_ to swing the sword on this asshole."

Then the light of the magical circle went down, the critters made various (and hideous) sounds of challenge, and charged us—

—even as what seemed to be half the police cars in Chicago came around the corner of Cullerton and Calumet and screeched to a halt behind us.

"This," I observed to no one in particular, "sucks."

"Amen," Buffy said from my left.

Then it got hectic.

I blasted a charging spider-phant with a shot from my blasting rod, actually killed it in a single blast, as I got it right in the head. Then I muttered a curse at myself and did the smart thing, the thing I should have done _first_.

I turned to my left, aimed my blasting rod at the street, channeled my will and a dash of Soulfire into my blasting rod and bellowed "MURO FUEGO!" as I swept the blasting rod from one edge of the street to the other.

A wall of fire, flickering with silver-white from my addition of Soulfire to the magic, sprang up across the street, and while it didn't stop the monsters Glenn Corwin sent at us, it did slow them down, make them hesitant. Fear of fire is deeply ingrained in most animals, and whatever he'd done to the minds of the miserable things, he hadn't eradicated that fear. While they came, the overwhelming swarm became more of a couple of lines of now-nervous and twitchy critters.

"Nice one, Dresden," Carlos called, and nodded his respect my way. "Everyone okay for the moment?"

"Good here," Buffy said, jerking the Scythe out of the corpse of a polar-gator and looking for her next target. "Harry, you were hurt earlier. You okay?"

"I'm good," I said, nodding at her. "Molly?"

My former apprentice too the time to do something surprising and pretty cool before she answered, and I found myself thinking of what Carlos had said about her ability to turn stuff that shouldn't have been weapons into dangerous magic.

Molly looked at the jelly-baboon that was edging up to the far side of the fire, then backing off, working itself up for a run-and-leap, and she opened her mouth— and sang. Not words, just a note, a high one, somewhere in the soprano range— and then, for just a second, the sound got— not louder, but _denser_. All the sudden, I couldn't hear it so well, but I could feel it, somewhere between my ears.

The jelly-baboon screamed, clawed its own ears _completely off its head_— and then its head actually _popped_, like it had taken a really big bullet right in the center.

"I'm good," Molly gulped, and glanced around. "Look, someone needs to go after Corwin, or he could make or summon more of these— whichever he's doing."

"Molly, I'm going to have to start calling you Black Canary," I told her, and smiled as she flushed with pride. "Neat trick, Wizard Carpenter.

"Buffy, if we get crazy for a minute or two, can you get around there and knock Corwin down and out?"

"Betcha," she said, and grinned a hard grin. "I'll enjoy it, too."

"Okay, then, we'll do—"

Something hit me in the gut, and it felt like I'd been hit with a mighty big hammer, swung by a mighty big man— say Andre the freaking Giant in the prime of his life. I went down, folded around something big and heavy, and glad as hell that it had hit my coat. If whatever-it-was had hit my unprotected stomach, I was pretty sure I'd have died.

"Harry!" Buffy yelled, and bent over to look at me. "Harry, can you breathe?"

I could, but not real well, so I didn't waste any of it on talking, just nodded. Buffy helped me stretch out some, and took the weight off of my stomach. It was a cinder block— a freaking concrete cinder block. Somehow it had been thrown hard enough to have probably killed me, if not for my enchanted duster.

"It was a bear-guy," Buffy said, her hands moving gently over my stomach, jerking away when I hissed in pain. "Crap. I think you need a doctor, Harry."

"Later," I managed to wheeze. "Help me sit up."

"No!" Molly said, and appeared behind Buffy. "You lay down, Harry! I've got this." She rounded on Buffy and said, "When the animals go bugshit, you go after Corwin. Carlos and I will cover you from here. You'll have to be quick, or they may kill _him_."

"Got it," Buffy said. She looked at me, saw me trying to sit up, and said, "Harry, you lay your ass down, or I'm telling Murphy— and then when she's done kicking your ass, it'll be my turn."

I ignored her, and pushed the cinder block behind the small of my back so I could sort of sit up. Not far, but enough to see, and maybe to help, if it got too crazy.

"Damn your stubborn ass!" Buffy snapped. She rolled her eyes, squeezed my hand, and said, "Fine— but don't move, or I'm telling _Maggie_."

I glared at her. That was going too far.

"Good," she said, seeing my glare and smiling. "Got your attention. Now be still!"

Molly had moved nearer to my wall of fire— still going strong, thanks to the little bit of Soulfire I'd added to it— and she stood there chanting softly. Carlos stood next to her, shooting bolts of disintegrating energy at anything that came too close to her, and watching her with an interest that seemed academic, as though he was hoping to learn whatever magic she was doing.

Again, Molly opened her mouth and a single note came out— but this one was low. Really low, lower than I would have thought a woman could reach. And it got lower. And lower. It sank below basso profundo, and it kept getting lower. And lower, until suddenly, I couldn't hear it— and I felt my nerves jumping, dancing, telling me to run, to get away, because something was wrong, something bad was happening.

"Holy shit," I breathed as I realized what Molly had done. She was magically making her voice infrasonic, taking it below the range of normal perception. Infrasonic waves had the ability to make humans feel fear for no apparent reason— and to make animals go _crazy_ with fear.

The animals on the other side of the wall of fire started attacking whatever was nearest to them— mostly each other, though some attacked cars and trees. I saw the bear-man holding a second cinderblock, watched in horrified fascination as he beat a Gila-tiger to death with it.

Buffy had gone over my wall of flame in a single leap, and was headed for Glenn Corwin, who was yelling at his creatures to stop attacking each other, cowering from those near him, and sometimes screaming wordlessly in frustration and fear. I watched as she beheaded the other spider-phant as it charged her, a screeching, trumpeting noise coming from its trunk. Then a rattle-mink tried to bite her, and she picked it up and threw it idly at the other jelly-baboon. The rattle mink ended up wrapped around the jelly-baboon, and they started trying to sting and bite each other to death.

Then one of the crab-people leapt at Buffy, screaming and chattering as it flew at her, serrated forearms out to rake her and grab her at the same time. Buffy simply tucked and rolled, went under the thing, came up and threw a back round kick at its head. It folded to the ground and didn't move.

I hoped it wasn't dead. There was a person in there, and there was a chance— slim as hell, but a chance, dammit!— that one of the White Council's healers could help them.

I watched as Buffy fought her way to Glenn Corwin in an amazingly short period of time, and I grinned at the sight. Watching the TV show had always been a blast— but this was _Buffy the Vampire Slayer_ doing what she did best, and doing it live. I am enough of a geek to appreciate that more than most, and I found myself smiling, just a little bit, as she waltzed through hell and made it look easy— just like on TV.

Then she reached Corwin, and he drew his sword and attacked her.

It was kinda pathetic. Buffy caught his blade on the Scythe, twisted her weapon two directions at once— and Corwin's blade snapped off about three inches above the hilt. While he was staring at his broken sword in shock, Buffy kicked him in the groin, the gut and the face— in that order. He went over backwards, and she picked him up and started back towards us.

Molly and Carlos started picking off the rest of the monsters, though they were careful not to kill those that obviously were part human.

I tried to help, but my stomach was hot and tight, and it hurt, so I just lay there and watched, and wondered why the world was getting fuzzy. After a couple of minutes, I guess I passed out.

I woke up in a hospital room with a fire in my gut and a head that felt like I'd gone twenty rounds with a troll and lost every round.

"What…?" I managed to say— and Buffy appeared in my vision, looking relieved. "What happened?"

"When Bruno the Bear-guy tossed that cinderblock at you," Buffy said, taking my hand in one of hers and giving me a look that expressed a lot of relief, "it popped your appendix, Harry. They had to operate to clean it up, or you'd have died."

"Oh," I said, and thought about that. "Do they… do they know about how I can affect machines?"

"Well… yes," Buffy said, and she sounded a little hesitant. "Um, Harry, you're not in a Chicago hospital."

"Then where am I?" I asked, trying to think of why I might not be in Chicago.

"You're in Southern Illinois," said a slow, deep, pleasant voice that I knew well. "You're at a hospital the White Council runs here— but only I and one other member of the Council know you're here, Hoss Dresden."

"Wizard Listens-to-Wind," I said, trying not to groan at the old Native American standing in the door of my hospital room. "It's good to see you, sir. And since I'm pretty sure you took care of the operation, thank you."

"You're welcome, Hoss Dresden," Listens-to-Wind said, a merry gleam in his eye. "Now, let me answer the question you are afraid to ask."

Listens-to-Wind stepped aside, and into the room stepped a stocky, powerfully built old man in overalls and a flannel shirt. A fringe of white hair circled his head, and his dark eyes sparkled with mock-anger that couldn't disguise his delight at seeing me. Ebenezar McCoy, who had stood up for me at my trial before the council, after I had killed my former mentor, Justin DuMorne, in self defense. Who had mentored me after, taught me much about what a wizard is supposed to be, and more about what man is supposed to be. And who, I'd found out during the battle to save my daughter's life at Chichén Itzá, had been so eager to mentor me, to see me become a member of the White Council, to help me, because he was my grandfather.

"Damn, but it's good to see you, son," he said, and stepped fully into the room. "Lot of people think you died after you got home from the Battle of Chichén Itzá, but I knew you'd be back.

"I would like to know why you're hiding out from the magical world, if you don't mind tellin' me, though."

"Well, sir," I said, trying to contain my delight at seeing him. "It's kind of a long story, and before I should tell it, have you met my friend, here?"

"We've been introduced in passing, but only in passing," my grandfather admitted.

"Then let me do it right," I said, grinning. I knew that Ebenezar had watched at least some of the show about Buffy, because he'd watched it with me. "Ebenezar McCoy, my former mentor and my friend, I'd like you to meet Buffy Sinclair— formerly Buffy Summers, and still the Slayer."

Ebenezar had been stepping forward to shake Buffy's hand, but when I finished the introduction, he froze, and I saw him studying her, comparing her face with that of Sarah Michelle Gellar, noting the differences— and accepting them.

"Well, I'll be," Ebenezar said, grinning. "Miss Sinclair, it's a pleasure to meet you."

"Buffy, please," she said, easily, and gave him a grin. "And the pleasure goes both ways— as I understand it, if you hadn't taken a chance on Harry, my friends and I would still be wandering around in the Nevernever."

Ebenezar snickered and said, "Well, that answers part of my question about your presence. Hoss, you gonna answer the rest of it?"

"Yes, sir," I said. I gave him a grin. "But it's a long story, sir. Maybe you'd better sit down…."

My grandfather pulled a chair over to the bed, Buffy sat on the edge of the bed near the foot, and I talked for the next couple of hours.


	11. Chapter 11

_Interlude: Medford, Oregon_

The doctor sat and stared at yet another hideously fogged and useless set of scan sheets, these from an actual x-ray, since both the MRI and CT scans had failed completely, and, in the case of the MRI, disastrously; the machine had crashed completely, burned out several of its motorized parts, crashed its computer drive and apparently self-erased its programs when it did so.

"This girl must have really pissed off that Murphy fellow," Ted Bernard said to himself as he set aside the x-ray printouts. "Because Murphy's Law seems to practically _come_ _alive_ around her."

"I hear that, Ted," said a voice from the doorway.

Doctor Bernard looked up to see Donald Grabowski of the Federal Aviation Administration standing in the door of his office, and motioned the other man to come in and sit down. Grabowski did so. They'd known each other for years, had gone to high school together and both managed to come back home to Medford— well, "to Oregon" for Don, he lived and worked in Portland— and were friends.

"Did you get anything out of her?" Ted asked as the FAA man sat down.

"No, she says she has no memories at all of the wreck, or of her life before the wreck," Don said, running a hand over his hair absently. "Thing is, I believe her— and I don't."

"What do you mean?" the doctor asked, genuinely interested.

"I mean that she says she has no idea who Jennifer Calder is, or about how the plane wreck that killed her folks and nearly killed her happened, and that I believe," Don said, leaning forward a little. "But I don't believe that she's being completely honest about _something,_ dammit. She's… hiding something. I know it, I can feel it, but I can't get a handle on it."

"I'm in the same boat," Dr. Bernard admitted. He spread his hands on the blotter, looked at them for a moment, then looked up at his friend. "She's plainly not lying when she says she's got no memory of her life before the plane wreck, but I think she does know… something. About something.

"Look, one example where I'm sure she's lying? I asked her if she had any idea why technology tends to go haywire around her, why the more complex the device, the bigger and faster the malfunction, and she said no— but I think she does have an idea, even knows for sure— but isn't admitting to it."

"Yeah," Don said, nodding. He sighed and said, "I asked if the technology-thing, the way nothing works right around her might have been the cause of the plane crash, and she said 'probably.' I believe she believes that. But when I asked her what causes it, she gave me this wide-eyed innocent look that was way, way too good to be true. Hell, I believed her— until I got out of the room."

"So, what now?" Ted asked.

"Nothing— catastrophic instrument failure was the verdict when it happened, and I see no reason to change that," Don said with a shrug. "I mean, I can't exactly say that Miss Calder being in the plane cause the wreck, and there's no way I could prove it was deliberate if I thought it was— which I don't.

"I'm going to recommend that we close the case again, and let her be."

"Yeah," Ted said, nodding. "We can't let her go yet— she's bounced back like a hard rebound in a pro basketball game, but there are rules. She's been out of it for four years, almost, so she's got a lot of crap to go through to become legally competent to care for herself."

"How's she taking that?" Don asked, honestly curious. He wanted to like the girl, she was nice— and a looker.

"Not so well," the doctor replied. "She asked to speak to her family's attorney yesterday, and was not at all happy when he said he couldn't hurry the process. Closest I've seen her to being actually unpleasant was after he left, and she asked to be left alone. She almost sounded… well, more than angry. Furious, maybe."

"Well, I'd want out of here if I'd been here for four years, too, y—" Don started to say.

"Doctor?" said a nurse from the doorway to his office. "Sir, we have a problem."

"What's wrong, Trish?" Bernard asked as he rose.

"Jennifer Calder," the nurse said, sounding worried. "Sir, she's gone— I've had security search the building, and she's not here."

Ted Bernard dry-scrubbed his face with one hand, then looked across his desk at Don Grabowski and said, "I guess she _really_ wanted out of here."

_Harry:_

My grandfather listened to my story of returning from the dead without interruption, and when it was over, he let out a heavy sigh— and did something that I hadn't expected.

"Son," Ebenezar said, looking at me and shaking his head ruefully, "you are every bit as crazy as your mother— it just manifests in different ways.

"I'm glad you're back, boy— and I'm glad that Maggie knows who you are. I… don't suppose you think Michael and his family are up to keeping another layer of secrets? That the child has a great-grandfather, I mean?"

I blinked in pure shock, and looked back and forth from Ebenezar to Buffy several times, unable to speak. I hadn't ever told Buffy and her friends that my former mentor was my grandfather, because that wasn't just my secret, it was his, too.

Ebenezar saw me looking, and he snorted laughter. "Son, this girl insisted on coming here with you, and she ain't left your room since they brought you in here. She's been right here, waiting for you to wake up, looking worried despite all of Injun Joe's assurances, and generally acting like a mother hen. It's obvious that she cares about you, and I trust your friends— when they're human, that is— so I don't mind her knowin' what we are to one another."

I took a moment to suck that up— and to watch Buffy blush, which she did very prettily. I reached over and squeezed her hand, said quietly, "Thank you, Buffy," and felt her squeeze back as she said, "You're welcome, Harry."

Then I looked up at my grandfather and told him something that I was afraid might well make him angry— but that he deserved to know, now that things had changed.

"Sir, there's something… something I didn't tell you before," I said slowly. "I… had my reasons, and I think you'll agree with them, once you hear me out— but I would appreciate it if you heard me out before you said anything." I met his eyes— we'd Soulgazed when I was sixteen, before he'd taken me into his home, so no danger of that happening again— and waited until he nodded to go on. "Thank you.

"Sir, Thomas Raith, the White Court Vampire that I… that I called my friend, that I rescued on the island out in Lake Michigan?"

"Aye, I remember," Ebenezar said, and his face darkened a little— but he didn't say more.

"He's human, now," I said, hoping that I was doing this in the right order. "And he—"

"Human?" Ebenezar said, skeptically. "I find that hard to believe, Hoss."

"It was done by Queen Mab," I said simply, and saw his face change to reluctant belief. "After I died, the power of the Winter Knight returned to her— and she made Thomas human so that she could make _him_ her Knight. She knew that he would accept, that he'd be grateful— because he was in love with a human woman."

"You'll forgive me if I find that hard to believe," Ebenezar snorted.

"I will, sir," I agreed, "because you never saw them together. You didn't see him burn when they touched. I did— and we both know what causes a White Court vampire to burn."

My grandfather gave me a long, serious look, then nodded slowly. "Aye. Aye, that's so. So you thought that since he loved someone, you could trust him?"

"That was part of it, sir," I said, and took a long, slow, deep breath. "The rest of it… sir, Thomas Raith is my half-brother. Through our mother.

"Through your daughter."

Ebenezar froze. He didn't even seem to breathe. Finally, he spoke, very softly. "You're sure of this?"

"I am. I Soulgazed him, and Maggie— Mom— had set it up so that if we Soulgazed, we'd each get a message from her." I swallowed. "He's my half-brother. Your grandson. And I think… well, he's human, now. He's the Winter Knight, yes— and I passed on what you said to me about that, sir, about choices, and he listened, and I think he appreciated— he's the Winter Knight, but he's no longer a monster. I thought…."

I trailed off, and simply sat there, waiting for him to say something, anything.

"Dammit, Hoss," he said finally, "you sure do know how to drop a bomb on an old man.

"I'd like to meet him— and I'd like it if you introduced us. I don't know if it's a good idea telling him what we are to each other, him being beholden to Mab, but… well, sometimes a man just has to take a chance, I guess."

"Thank you, sir." I realized I was still holding Buffy's hand when she gave mine a squeeze, and gave me a grin when I looked at her. "Uh, if you want, when I get out of here, you could come back to Chicago with me. Stay a day or two, I've got the room, now. Meet Thomas. Meet Maggie. Meet the rest of the Scooby Gang— Dawn's coming to work for me part time, she's a research genius, and Xander— I think you'll like him."

"Well, he was my second favorite character on the sh—" My grandfather stopped in mid-word looked guiltily at Buffy, and said, "I beg your pardon. I didn't mean that to… come out at all, let alone how it sounded."

"No, I get it," Buffy said, and rolled her eyes at Ebenezar. "Xander pulled the exact same mistake a couple of times, talking about the books he read that starred Harry, and I can see how it would happen. I'm just glad you liked the show.

"And of course, I _am_ going to insist on knowing who your favorite character was, now…."

Ebenezar laughed, a full-throated belly laugh, and reached over to pat Buffy's free hand. "It was you, young lady— you've got more spunk than any woman I've met since… since Harry's mother. And that's saying a lot."

Buffy laughed and shook my grandfather's hand— she had my right in her left, so her right was free— and he stood to take his leave.

"Injun Joe says if you behave and do as he damn tells you, you can go home day after tomorrow— that'd be Friday." Ebenezar smiled at me and said, "How about I go with you then, spend the weekend?"

"I'd like that very much, sir," I said, and my voice was a little wobbly with emotion. My grandfather heard it, but did me the courtesy of ignoring it, and I said, "Maybe, if the weather warms a bit, we can convince the Carpenters to do a cookout."

"Sounds like a fine idea," he agreed. He glanced at Buffy and said, "It was a real pleasure to meet you, young lady— and I empower you to thump Harry if he doesn't do as the doctor says."

"Thank you, and I enjoyed meeting you, too," Buffy said around a laugh at my indignant expression.

"You'd better not be planning on thumping me," I said once Ebenezar had gone. "I'm your boss. You can't thump the boss."

"I think grandfather trumps boss," Buffy said with a grin. "I like him, Harry— he's cool."

"Yeah, he's one of a kind," I agreed. I sighed and said, "Can I get you to crank this thing down flat, Buffy? I think I need some sleep."

(She'd cranked it up when I woke up— no electrical power, of course, a short-circuit on a patient's bed would be bad.)

"You can sleep soon," Wizard Listens-to-Wind said from the doorway. He came in holding a tray with some incredibly good smells coming from it. "First you eat, Hoss Dresden. Then your doctor looks you over, then you can sleep.

"There is food for your friend, too— the soup, bread and pudding are for you, young man, the sandwiches and salad for her."

"Oh, you're a prince among men," Buffy said as the old wizard put a loaded tray across my lap. "Thanks, Joseph."

"No problem, Buffy," Injun Joe said, grinning widely at her. "And while I examine the boy, you can go call your friends, tell them he's recovering, and should be home early Friday afternoon."

"Works." Buffy shot me a brief glare. "If he gives you any guff, or argues about treatment or anything, just remind him that Ebenezar said I can thump him."

"I get no respect," I muttered as I reached for the soup, which, I admit, smelled heavenly.

"You and Rodney Dangerfield," Buffy agreed.

I stayed, I behaved, and Buffy slept in the next room, was there most of the time I was awake. We talked a lot, and I found myself learning things I'd never known— simply because the show I'd watched had never shown them. Little things like her deathly fear of rats, at least until she'd become the slayer (she still didn't like them, but didn't scream-and-flee anymore, she said). Like that her absolute favorite color was green. Like that the first thing she noticed about a person she was attracted to was their smell. Like that her favorite non-dessert food was chicken parmesan.

She learned a lot of the same things about me. My absolute terror of jellyfish. That my favorite color was the same as hers. That the first thing I noticed about a woman I was attracted to was their eyes. My favorite non-dessert food was a steak sandwich made by Mac MacAnally, proprietor of my favorite bar and restaurant in the world. (Yes, even ahead of Burger King.)

We talked, and talked, and talked, and I found myself more and more at home with her. It was a good two days, despite the enforced bed rest, and the occasional twinges of pain from my stomach and ribs (two were cracked from the fire hydrant cap that had hit me).

Friday, Ebenezar showed up to take us home, and he seemed amazed when I said that if he'd let me navigate, I could get us there in twenty minutes. Then he reminded me that I wasn't supposed to walk much, and asked if the Way through Faerie that I told him about was wheelchair friendly. I touched my mother's amulet again, listened to her description, and said that it should be.

So we went my way. The path was mostly easy, and I only had to walk about thirty steps, which I did with my arm across my grandfather's shoulders and a big grin on my face— it felt _good_ to have him to lean on, dammit! Buffy carried my wheelchair easily for those thirty paces, and pushed me the rest of the time.

We came out in an alley six blocks from my building on a day when the temperature was headed for the middle fifties, the sky was clear, and the air smelled clean (by Chicago standards and once we were out of the alley, anyway).

It was almost a party at my office. Murphy was there with Dawn, who'd taken a late lunch, Xander and Michael, who'd done the same, and Carlos Ramirez and Molly, who had come to tell me the outcome of the mess with Glenn Corwin. (Buffy hadn't known, my grandfather hadn't come back until I was checking out, and Injun Joe refused to talk about any business of any sort.)

I got my hand shaken, my shoulder slapped, and I shocked the heck out of everyone by introducing Ebenezar as my grandfather (with cautions about keeping it quiet). I even timed it right— and got a perfect spit-take out of Carlos. Some days, it's good to be the smartass.

"Holy crap, Harry," Carlos said when he stopped coughing and choking. "It's no wonder you got the kind of power you do, being descended from the scariest wizard alive. No offense meant, sir!"

"None taken," Ebenezar said with a ferocious grin. "In fact, I think I'll take that as a compliment."

"That's how it was meant, sir." Carlos shook his head. "Wow. Well, I'll keep it secret— I don't want either of you mad at me."

"Harry," Michael said when the chuckles died down, "I take it you'd like to introduce your grandfather to Maggie."

"It's on the agenda, yeah," I agreed.

"The weather is supposed to be unseasonably warm, tomorrow," Michael said, looking pleased. "Perhaps a cookout? Our back deck? Maybe a bonfire after supper?"

"Stop reading my mind," I said. I gave him a grin. "However, given that this time, this is about doing me a favor, I will be bringing supplies, and you and your wife will simply nod and say thank you!"

"Mmm." Michael looked thoughtful. "Perhaps if you agree to take any leftover meat from such supplies, I can get Charity to agree to it."

"I can agree to that," I said with a nod. "Thank you, Michael."

"Not a problem," he assured me. Then he turned to Molly, who was standing close to Carlos, but not too close, and not holding his hand or anything— and he proved that he was definitely a dad. "Warden Ramirez, you'll join us, I hope? Since you and Molly are seeing each other, you should meet her mother."

Carlos sputtered long enough that I busted out laughing, and he glared at me before he managed to say to Michael, "I'd be honored, sir."

"Molly, why don't you two come by for lunch?" Michael asked as Molly stared at him, trying to figure out how he'd known. "That will give your mother and I time to get to know him a little."

"I… yes, but— but Dad, how did you know!" Molly said, her eyes wide and round.

Michael just smiled gently at her, said, "The rest of you… about three? Early, but there will be plenty of time to talk and I'm sure the children will have ideas for activities."

"Suits me fine," I said, barely managing to get the words out around a laugh that was hurting my stomach, but too strong to stop. "See you then, Michael."

Michael and Xander took off to go back to work, Dawn left to catch a bus back to the Field Museum, and Molly and Carlos stood there looking at each other, around at us, and sputtering helplessly.

"How did he _do_ that!" Molly cried after Buffy, Karrin, my grandfather and I had managed to stop laughing. "That's not fair!"

"He did it," I said, finally catching my breath, "by being your father, Molly. That's all. Just that. It's all he needed."

"That's… just spooky," Molly complained. "I mean— we were going to tell them, I was going to invite them to dinner one day after their anniversary, but… that's just not fair."

"Life's tough," I said, and shot her a grin as she glared at me. "Okay, I never did hear how the thing with that Corwin asshole came out. What happened?"

That got Molly and Carlos to focus on the here and now, rather than the tomorrow. We all sat down in the lobby of my office and Carlos told us what had happened.

"First thing, Wizard Listens-to-Wind just showed up out of the blue, and he took a look at the shape-changed people, and he… he started cussing the Corwin kid, Harry," Carlos said, looking shocked that so mild a person as Joseph Listens-to-Wind even _knew_ cuss words, let alone used them. "He cussed him in at least six languages, probably lots more, because Molly and I know four between us, and we both recognized German and French on top of those.

"He said that nothing could be done for them, and then he started looking you over. He said you had a busted appendix, and that he needed to get you out of there for treatment, before you really did die— he was shocked as hell to see you, Harry, but he was glad as hell, too— and he took you off with him, and with Buffy to carry you for him, after she insisted on going.

"He only glanced once at Glenn Corwin, and he just looked a mixture of sad and pissed when he did, and said that he'd tell the rest of the Senior Council to gather in Chicago in eight hours."

"Yeah, that sounds like Injun Joe, all right," Ebenezar said, nodding. "I'm glad he showed up— and that he called me after he got you somewhere safe, son." He shot me a pretty wicked grin and added, "And you'd best be glad you were injured and unconscious when I got there, or I'd have tanned your hide for not letting me know you were all right."

"I am glad, sir," I admitted freely. Then I looked back at Carlos and raised an eyebrow, indicating he should continue.

"We kept Corwin unconscious after Buffy took him down," Carlos said after a look at Molly and a nod from her. "The guy scared me, Harry, and no bullshit about it— I didn't want him waking up, because he scared me."

"Me, too," Molly said quietly, and shivered.

"I searched him, but I'm glad that I did something else, first," Carlos said. He shuddered visibly, and I almost went slack-jawed at the sight. Carlos is no coward, no Warden is— but he's braver than most, including me.

"Before I searched him, I checked him with the Sight," Carlos said, referring to the wizard's ability to see magic and things affected magically. "If I hadn't… Harry, if I hadn't done that first, Molly would probably be dead right now, and everyone else at the scene, and the Wardens would be hunting me right now."

"Oh, bullshit, Carlos, you'd never have hurt Molly, or a bunch of innocent people," I said, dismissing that idea with a snort.

"Yeah, I would have," Carlos said somberly. "Harry, the kid had this… this gemstone in his pocket, and it was… Christ, Harry, it was the source of most of his power. Without it, the kid was no threat, not really.

"And it had a spirit in it, something… I've never seen anything like it. It was evil, man, and I could _see_ that it was evil, and that it knew more about magic than I could ever learn. The kid got it somehow, and he… well, it gave him power enough to rival you, Harry, and it was teaching him things fast, dumping the things the kid wanted to know right into his head, which made his already-existing psychoses even worse than they already were.

"I didn't touch that stone until I had some serious magical protection and a pair of heavy leather gloves, and I still heard the thing in the stone trying to tell me… how powerful it could make me, how much it could teach me.

"It scared me, 'mano. Bad."

I sat and thought about that for a moment, then nodded at Carlos to go on, and he did.

"We got the kid and the people who'd been messed with out, thanks to Murphy and her SI buddies covering for us. Took them into the Nevernever, moved them a ways, until things should be clear, then took them back to our world. Murphy got us transportation to the warehouse we use in Chicago, and by the time we'd gotten there, most of the Senior Council was there, with only Wizard Listens-to-Wind absent, and he gave Wizard McCoy—"

"Think you'd better call me Ebenezar, son, if we aren't at an official function," my grandfather said. "Same for you, young lady."

They both thanked him and asked him to use their first names as well, and Carlos went back to the tale.

"Listens-to-Wind had given Ebenezar his voting proxy, so the Merlin and the others examined the kid's victims, and… well, Harry, you won't like hearing this, but none of them could be helped," Carlos said, looking miserable. "The Gatekeeper himself checked over the mind-mangled ones, and… he looked sick, Harry, I thought he was going to throw up. He said there was no help for them.

"The Merlin agreed, and said that he didn't think the shape-changed ones could be helped either, but thought that we should wait until Listens-to-Wind had examined them. Ebenezar said that he'd done so already, that the Gatekeeper had foreseen the need, and everyone bought that, since Wizard Rashid has the most accurate visions of the future on the White Council.

"They… decided that ending them was the only answer— all of them had been programmed for massive violence and pretty much nothing else."

I made some sound, apparently a distressed one, since Buffy took my hand and my grandfather laid a hand on my shoulder and left it there for a long moment. Murphy leaned over and squeezed my other hand, and gave me a small nod. She knew where I was coming from.

"I know," Carlos said, his own voice sad, angry and sick. "I know, Harry. But they were right. Molly and I had both looked at them with our Sight, and we… knew they were right. I hated it, still hate it, because we're supposed to _save_ people, dammit— but this time there was no saving his victims.

"Then the Merlin Soulgazed Corwin, and… Harry, the freaking _Merlin_ looked like he was going to throw up after. The other Council members 'gazed him as well, and I think… I think maybe Wizard Rashid looked into the kid's brain as well, because after it was all over, he said to tell you, Harry, that it was definitely a case of 'Sells and the hexenwolves,' which I'm guessing was those FBI guys with the hexenwolf belts you told me about that one night out at Camp Kaboom."

(Camp Kaboom was the _very_ unofficial name of a training camp for young Wardens that was out in the desert of New Mexico. We'd both spent time out there, training young Wardens in the fine art of violently destructive magic.)

"He was," I assured Carlos. Then I looked at my grandfather, and asked, "You Soulgazed the kid— was it really that bad?"

For a moment, Ebenezar was silent, and I could see by the darkening of his eyes and the increased depth of the lines on his face that he was remembering that Soulgaze, in all of its horrible detail. After a moment, he nodded sharply and said, "Aye. Aye, it truly was. The boy… I don't think he was truly sane before whatever-the-hell that stone did to him, but after… he was a monster, son. There was nothing human left in him."

I again made a non-word sound— but this one was anger. "If I find the sons-of-bitches who did that, I swear to _god,_ I'll end them all, and I don't care what it takes!"

"And you'll take us with you," Molly said immediately. She looked as though she were about to vomit, just from listening to us talk about this, and I remembered that Molly was a Sensitive— she felt things through magic more deeply than the rest of us, more intensely. "I want in on that fight, Harry— and so does Carlos."

"And Buffy," Buffy added, and I glanced at her to see her eyes, normally a brilliant, vivid green, turn dark as her features set. "Making people into monsters? I'm familiar with that one, and I've always hated it."

"And me," Murphy said, her voice a cold, hard thing. "Cop or not, this is _my town_. They don't get to hurt and kill people here, not without paying for it."

"Hell, son, I think you might oughtta just invite all of us." My grandfather looked around at the four people with us, then he looked at me, and raised an eyebrow in question. "In fact…."

He trailed off, watching my face… and I thought for only a very few seconds before I said, "Yes. Yes, sir. All four of them."

"What are you two talking about?" Carlos asked, his eyes bouncing back and forth between Ebenezar and I. "All four of us what?"

"All four of you are worthy of our trust," Ebenezar said softly. "And in this case, Harry and I are trusting you with our very lives, all of you."

"Yeah," I agreed, and looked around at them. "But that's always worked out in the past, and each of you… you're not just my friends, you're the people I want beside me when the badness starts flying around.

"But let me put a disclaimer on this, before we go any farther; what Ebenezar is about to tell you could well result in people on both sides of the magical conflict that's starting to look like it engulfs the entire world _wanting you dead_. So if you aren't comfortable with working outside the box in a way that could result in even the good guys branding you a traitor, then maybe you should go upstairs and wait for the rest of us."

I waited, and I looked at each of them.

Karrin's eyes narrowed, and I saw her putting together the things I had told her that I couldn't tell her over the years, grouping them together, and making not a picture, but a picture frame— and she was both smart enough and the right _kind_ of smart, that her frame was probably exactly the right size and shape.

Molly looked nervous, but resolute, and I found myself thinking about how much she'd grown since she'd been a teenage almost-warlock, grown, learned and matured.

Buffy looked calm, interested and even intrigued. She saw me looking, nodded at me, and squeezed slightly the hand she still had hold of.

Carlos… Carlos proved that some things never, ever change. He simply let his cockiest grin spread slowly across his face— and leaned closer, listening eagerly, even excitedly.

"All right," my grandfather said, nodding at each of them once, and solemnly. "Here's the basic outline; the White Council is refusing to believe, despite the increasing evidence, that there is any organized plot to break its power and replace it with a different governing body over those who possess the power of magic. Harry has encountered the plotters multiple times, and taken to calling them 'the Black Council,' though there's reason to believe that they call themselves 'the Circle.'

"Because certain members of the magical community feel that the White Council is behaving like a bunch of damned _ostriches,_ we have formed our own group to oppose the Black Council. Past behavior leads us to believe that if the White Council gets wind of this, they will label us the 'Black Council,' declare us traitors, hunt us down and kill us.

"But still… we have formed the Grey Council, in an attempt to preserve the White Council and the buffer they provide between the magical and mortal worlds.

"I am empowered to offer membership to others, though I can't tell you who else is a member besides Harry and I, for our safety and yours. I would ask you all to join, but I need you not to do so lightly. This is a matter of importance the likes of which the world may not have seen since… since before recorded history.

"Will you join the Grey Council?"

For a long moment, no one spoke— then Buffy, still holding on to my hand, stood up and said, "I'm in. It sounds like you guys are doing what needs to be done, and that's what the slayer power is for."

"I don't know what a 'vanilla mortal,' to quote Harry, can bring to the table," Murphy said, giving me a slightly dirty look, "but I'm in. Harry and I have argued about methods a lot down the years— but I know he's been fighting the good fight."

"I'll join," Molly said, her voice low, but not frightened. "I… I've seen Harry stand up against things that should have been impossible to beat, and my dad did it for years, and they both did it because it was the right thing to do. I want to follow their examples."

I blushed— but I grinned at her, nodded my thanks.

"Hell, yes, I'm in," Carlos said, his grin growing almost impossibly wide. "A chance to fight those bastards? Yes!"

"Okay, then," Ebenezar said, grinning and shaking their hands one at a time. "I'll get you the contact methods we use before I go home Monday.

"Thank you, all of you."

After that, we six went upstairs. I rode the elevator with Ebenezar, who had long since developed a short-term charm that kept even power like his and mine from shorting out electronics. (He showed it to me before he left. I could only make it last for about ninety seconds, but for those ninety seconds, I wouldn't even freak out a complex device like a computer. Nifty!)

I'd invited Thomas and Justine over for dinner that night, and I'm not going to bother to tell you about his pure delight when he found out he had a grandfather, or my grandfather's delight at having another grandson— let's just say that everyone was happy, and leave it at that.

Maggie's reaction to finding out that she had a great-grandfather was pure delight, and Ebenezar… well, he got awfully sentimental about her being named for my mother.

The cookout and bonfire after went just fine, with Maggie splitting her time between playing with the rest of the kids (and Mouse, who seemed to enjoy playing with them as much as they enjoyed playing with him— I mean, come on, a dog as smart as [or smarter than, I sometimes think] a person? _Great_ playmate!) and sitting on my or my grandfather's lap, with a little lap-time for both Michael and Charity, so they wouldn't feel left out.

Karrin, Buffy, Xander and Dawn also seemed to have a good time, as did Molly and Carlos— who seemed unscathed by their lunch and afternoon with Molly's folks. I guess Charity really _had_ mellowed out….

A grand time was had by all, and I was well enough to get out of bed and get showered on my own Sunday— but I admit, the smell of frying bacon probably helped. Ebenezar was a damned good cook, and he made a breakfast that was to die for.

He and I stayed in and just talked that day— like we hadn't done since I was a teenager and living with him as his apprentice. That was a damned good day.

He went home after lunch Monday— but he said he'd visit again when he had the time, and he asked me if I thought that maybe my ability— well, the ability I'd inherited from my mother— to get around in the Ways of Faerie might include a way short and safe enough for Maggie and I to come out to his farm in the Ozarks for a day sometime soon.

I consulted the gem in my necklace, listened to my mother's voice— and grinned. "It's a ten minute trip, sir, and it's safe enough that I'm perfectly comfortable with the idea. I'll ask Michael and Charity soon, and if they agree— I'm pretty sure they will, they love seeing me be a father— I'll put the idea to Maggie."

My grandfather, not a terribly physically demonstrative man, shook my hand and slapped my shoulder, then caught a cab for the White-Council-standard entry to the Nevernever, and the short walk to Edinburgh.

I went downstairs to the office, settled in behind my desk, and answered the phone myself when it rang a half an hour later.

"Dresden Investigation Services, Harry Dresden speaking," I said into the phone.

John Marcone's voice said, "I have that information you were looking for. Shall I give it to you now, or shall we meet?"

I squeezed the phone too tightly, felt a swell of emotion, and heard the line crackle. "Let's meet. I'd rather do this face to face."

"Very well," Marcone said, and he rattled off an address downtown.

"I'll be there in half an hour," I said, and I hung up the phone. I sat for a moment, thinking, then stood up and went out to the lobby. Karrin was off working a 'vanilla' case, some embezzling thing, so I stuck my head into Buffy's office and said, "Hey— I'm gonna go find out who killed me. Want to come along for the ride?"

Buffy bounced to her feet, a slightly predatory grin spreading across her face. "I wouldn't miss it," she said, grabbing her jacket and following me towards Captain Midnight.

"There's just one little complication you should be aware of," I said, and explained to her something that I'd learned from Murphy over the weekend. "I'm going to… make a ruckus about that."

Buffy just smiled, cracked her knuckles, and said, "Good."

We rode the rest of the way to Marcone's latest office in anticipatory silence.


	12. Chapter 12

_Interlude:_

She stepped out of the Nevernever into an alley in Los Angeles. She had never been there, but some things hold true of any large city, and she knew a way to find money.

She left the alley, dressed in the jeans and scrub top that she'd grabbed at the hospital— the jeans were actually hers, or, rather, they were the property of the person who'd used to live here. The scrub top she'd taken since she hadn't found a blouse in the closet with the jeans and underwear that had been there. The hospital had maybe had to cut off the top the body had been wearing on admittance…?

No matter. She had clothes, and needed money. That would only take a few moments….

She found a small park a few blocks off, and sat down under a tree there. She started the spell she had in mind with pure visualization, frowned after a moment, sighed, and gave in. She did it was a circle, even made it a full-on diagram— and when she broke the circle, the magic held in it started away immediately, moving at about the pace of a brisk walk.

Twenty minutes later, she found herself next to a trashcan on a side street off of downtown LA. She frowned, checked the feeling she got from her magic, then dropped to her knees. She looked under the trashcan, saw a gleam of gold, and slid her hand under. (Such small hands— such a small body overall! But she was very pretty, which was nice, and could be very useful.)

She straightened up, palming the money clip easily, not stopping to count it here. Instead, she found a small restaurant, ordered a drink and a meal, and went to the bathroom to count the money in a stall.

Most of the money crammed into the money clip she'd found magically was hundreds, with a couple of fifties and a lone twenty on the outside. She had over two thousand dollars, here. That would be enough for a start.

She ate, paid, left a generous tip, and went shopping. Four hours later, she paid a man a thousand dollars for a simple ID— it wouldn't stand up to police examination, but she didn't need it to. After getting the ID, she boarded a bus for Las Vegas.

The next night, she won over two hundred thousand dollars in cash at a small, more-than-slightly questionable casino, one that would pay out a relatively small jackpot like hers, and use the good publicity to fleece more suckers. Of course, they'd never let her back in the casino again, but she didn't mind— she had business elsewhere.

Las Vegas was a good city for her next step— anywhere with that much money also had a great deal of crime. It took her very little time to find the upscale equivalent of the man who'd sold her the ID that she'd used when filling out tax forms at the casino. He listened to her clear, concise description of what she required of him, looked at her oddly, and said, "If you take a random last name, it's a lot cheaper, you know."

"I need the last name I gave you," she replied. She cocked her head a little, then added, "I can take any non-wrong-ethnicity first name, if that helps. I mean, I don't think I'd make a very convincing Beatriz, or Indira— but any Anglo-Saxon first name will do."

"Okay, that may bring down the price some," the forger said, nodding. "Can I ask— why the fixation on the last name?"

"There is… a man out there, a man who has…." She trailed off for a moment, then shook her head. "Let's just say that I owe him. And I want him to know exactly who's doing the paying. That means the last name I gave you, that's all."

The forger accepted that— and fifty thousand dollars— and gave her what she asked for.

_Harry:_

I drove to the address John Marcone had given me, and thought about why it was new to me. I figured that Marcone would move offices regularly, and present it to the public as wanting to be close to whatever project was currently most in the public eye. But my bet on the real reason was so that the criminal scum who almost certainly wanted to kill him wouldn't be sure to find him.

Don't get me wrong— there are things about "Gentleman" John Marcone that I respect— it's just that I never let myself forget that he's criminal scum. Oh, I can be surprised into forgetting for a couple of minutes, like when he asked my daughter's name at our last meeting, but that never lasts for long. He's a criminal, he hurts people for a living— or at least that's part of what he does.

I told Buffy what I'd learned from Murphy over the weekend, and what I intended to do about it. She turned a little in the seat to face me, and asked, "How do I help?"

"Marcone knows I want to stay off the radar for a while, and he can be trusted to help on that— he has a soft spot for kids, and he knows I'm a dad nowadays," I told her. "That means that his usual two guards won't be present, because one is a freaking valkyrie, and has ties to the magical community, and the other is a gorilla with a crush on the valkyrie, who'd tell her to get on her good side.

"That means that whatever bodyguards he has will be unknown quantities— but probably good, Buffy. Don't go thinking they're just mooks— Marcone wouldn't use men who didn't have the applicable skills as bodyguards.

"That being said— I'm hoping you can keep them busy while I… explain the error of his ways to Marcone."

"I'm pretty sure that I can handle that," Buffy said, nodding and smirking. "No serious beatings for the goons, I'm guessing?"

"Not unless you have to," I said, and snickered. "I can't imagine you having to."

"Why thank you, kind sir."

"You are quite welcome, dangerous lady."

She laughed, thumped me lightly on the arm, and we rode the rest of the way in silence.

Marcone was in an unfinished office on the fiftieth story of a high-rise office building that he'd bought and was refurbishing. He had a secretary in the outer office, a tall, busty Asian girl who simply told me to go in as soon as I entered the outer office.

The place he was using had been stripped to girders and steel for the walls, had a plywood floor, and visible electrical conduits and such all over the room. Marcone sat behind a simple sheet-metal desk, his head down over a set of plans. Two large, competent men that I'd never seen before stood next to the windows at parade rest, and they both had the lean, hard muscle of soldiers. I glanced at Buffy as we went in, and she nodded just a little, telling me that she was sure she could handle them.

We stopped in front of the desk, and I cleared my throat. Marcone looked up, let go of the plans he was looking at, allowing them to roll closed, and looked speculatively at Buffy.

"This would be your employee, then," he said in a level voice, though his eyes moved over Buffy, cataloguing her as he did everyone and everything he looked at. "Won't you introduce us?"

"John Marcone, crime lord, this is Elizabeth Sinclair, private detective and friend," I said, my voice level and calm. "Elizabeth, vice versa."

"Hiya," Buffy said with a little wave.

"A pleasure, Miss Sinclair," Marcone said. He studied her for a moment, then said, "I'm sure you hear this a great deal, but you bear a strong resemblance to—"

"Sarah Michelle Prinze, yeah," Buffy said with a heavy sigh.

"You are a good deal more attractive, if it's any consolation," Marcone said, smiling at her.

"Thanks— that I could stand to hear more often."

Marcone laughed dutifully, then his eyes turned to me, and he held out a piece of paper that he took from his breast pocket. "Here you are, Dresden. The name you requested— and an address, though I'm afraid it's in Serbia.

"I have made certain that those of my employees who helped expedite the gentleman's visit and the work that he did know that they are not to do such ever again."

"Thanks, I guess." I took the paper, looked at the name and address, shoved the paper in my duster pocket, and looked up. "Now, there's another matter we need to discuss, John— right now."

"And that would be?" Marcone said, a sigh escaping him.

"Last October, Karrin Murphy and Will Borden came to you for information about Will's missing and pregnant wife," I said, my voice less even, now starting to sound a little angry— which was fine, because I was a lot more than just a little angry. "Will was pretty damned upset at the time, and I happen to think he had a right to be— don't you?"

Marcone's face had gone blank, and his faded-money-green eyes were watching me very carefully now. His goons stepped forward, and he didn't tell them to step back, so I didn't say anything to Buffy when she stepped forward and said, very coldly, "Don't. I'll hurt you."

One of them snorted in derision, but the other stayed silent, and both stayed where they were for the moment.

"I suppose Mr. Borden might have had reason to be upset, yes," Marcone admitted, his voice frosty cold. "That does not excuse—"

I had my staff in my right hand, so I slapped my right hand down on the desk with a noise like a thunderclap, thanks to the tiny effort of will I sent with it. "You threw a _knife_ at my _friend!"_ I snarled— and I heard a sudden flurry of motion, followed by a violent expulsion of air and rapid-fire series of blows and blocks.

I left things where they were for a moment. Marcone didn't look worried yet— so I waited until Buffy flung the second guard across the room and into the door before I added, "Stabbing my friend was a very, _very_ bad idea, Marcone. Maybe the worst idea you've had lately."

The second guard had recovered the breath that Buffy had knocked out of him, and he was coming at her with one of those extendable police batons in either hand, now. She backed up, not from fear— but so Marcone could see.

I didn't need to look around, I knew that she could take the goon, so I just kept my eyes on Marcone's face as he watched the fight, and watched what I could in the reflection on the window behind Marcone.

Buffy casually blocked every blow that Marcone's bodyguard threw at her, taking the rapid, violent blows from a titanium-steel rod on her hands and arms with no sign of pain at all. Finally, she got bored, and the next time the guard swung the baton in his right hand at her, she blocked his wrist, not the weapon— and everyone there heard the bones break as that baton sailed across the room. I'll give the bodyguard credit— he didn't fold, but kept on trying.

Or at leas, he kept trying until Buffy snatched the other baton out of his hand, snapped it in two, and, while the guard stared in disbelief, laid him out with a side-kick to the jaw.

"That was almost fun," Buffy said as she wandered back to my side. "Maybe next time you could have a half a dozen goombas, Mr. Marcone— that might actually give me a workout."

Marcone didn't answer her, just looked back at me, his face still mostly without emotion— though I could see both anger and a little bit of worry there, now.

"Now that I have your undivided attention," I said, my voice as much growl as speech, "let me explain something to you, Marcone. Something you may not have thought of before now.

"From now on, the moment you hurt any of my friends, no matter how small and trivial the wound, _I am coming for you."_

Marcone blinked, and I knew that he was listening, now.

"My friends are off limits," I told him, my voice still a growl. "My family is off limits. In fact, John, everyone I know is off limits. If you touch anyone I know again, I am going to put you in a hole so deep you will never get out, because you and I both forgot something, Marcone— but I remembered it, finally."

"What, pray tell, might that be?" Marcone asked, trying very hard to sound bored— and almost making it.

"You're a freeholding lord," I said, giving him a hard, cold smile. "I am a Warden of the White Council. Both of us are signatories to the Unseelie Accords, though me only by proxy, as a member of a signatory group.

"But as a Warden of the White Council, I have the right to take offense at harm done to those under my protection, Marcone— and I have the right, under the Unseelie Accords, to challenge to a duel by the laws of the Code Duello, _any member_ who gives offense to me by harming those under my protection.

"I am still the regional commander of the Wardens for the Eastern half of the United States, Captain Lucciio refuses to replace me— so I have _legal grounds,_ Marcone.

"You don't have a single soul working for you who could take me by the Code, Marcone— and despite your high opinion of yourself, you couldn't either.

"So if you touch anyone I know, anyone I care about, I will be coming for you under the laws you signed onto— and _I will end you!"_

I snarled those last four words right in his face, and Marcone finally reacted, jerked back from me as though afraid I might bite him.

"In fact," I went on more calmly as I straightened up, "you might want to start thinking about going legit, Marcone— because something else has changed besides me finally remembering the Accords."

"What… might that be?" Marcone asked. He managed to sound calm, though I think I had finally, truly gotten to him.

"When I asked you for help with finding that little girl last October," I said, referring to asking him to help me find Maggie, though he'd had no idea that she was my daughter back then, "you pointed out that there were a lot of threats and problems more pressing than you around here, that I couldn't concern myself with you because of all of the other things around here.

"Well, the extinction of the Red Court? That cleared away a lot of the things above you, Marcone. A whole lot of them. No more war, no more watching my back for Red Court assassins at every turn… that moved you up the ladder a good ways.

"Then comes the thing that moves you even higher up the ladder, John— you're in third place now, maybe second soon, because of one… little… thing."

For a moment, I didn't think he was going to bite. Finally, he licked his lips and asked, "What might that be?"

I looked at the door, saw that it was still tightly shut, glanced at the thugs, saw that they were both still unconscious. Recording or listening devices I didn't worry about at all— there was no way such a comparatively delicate electronic device was going to survive my presence, not when I was angry and letting that anger run free.

"My daughter, Marcone." I gave him my iciest smile. "She lives here, probably will for the rest of her childhood.

"I won't have her living in a town where scum like you operate unchecked. She's going to have better than that.

"Remember that, you son of a bitch."

With that I turned and stalked out of the room, left Marcone sitting there behind his desk with his mouth clamped into a tight white line, and something that I thought was genuine fear— finally!— in his eyes.

I didn't dare take the elevator down, now that I'd let my temper run wild, so Buffy and I took the stairs— and pretty soon she had me sliding down railings after her, both of us laughing like kids.

When we reached Captain Midnight, Buffy stopped me, stepped close, slid her arms around me, and hugged me tightly. I wasn't sure why, but I wasn't about to waste a good hug, so I squeezed back until she let go, at which point she grabbed my lapels, pulled me down some, stood on tiptoe, and kissed my cheek before she let me straighten up.

I looked down at her, pleased but a little confused, and said, "That was nice, thanks— but what was the occasion?"

"Dummy," Buffy said fondly as she shook her head and went around to the passenger's side. "It was because of what you just did, Harry. The things you did for your friends— and especially what you said to that jerk about Maggie and how you wouldn't have her growing up in a bad place.

"You're a hell of a dad, Harry Dresden, and a hell of a guy to boot."

"Thanks," I said as I got in, and tried to fight my blush as I leaned over and unlocked the door for her.

After I got the car into third gear, Buffy took my hand and held it when I didn't need it to shift, and did so all the way back home.

Nifty.

When we got into the office, I sent Buffy off to research the name and address that Marcone had given me— having someone around who could use the internet wasn't just handy, it was becoming sort of addictive— and then I had a thought.

"Hang on a second, Buffy," I called from my office door. She turned and raised an eyebrow, and I said, "Before you get online, would you run upstairs and measure the Scythe?"

"Uh, sure," Buffy agreed looking confused. "But… why?"

"I'm going to go out and buy something you can carry it in," I said, and saw understanding dawn. "Even in Serbia, they don't like people carrying deadly weapons in the open. Or, at least not edged ones. And if this guy was working for something on the supernatural end of things, well… I may want you to want the Scythe."

Buffy chuckled and went upstairs. When she came back down, she had the measurements for me, and I left her to the internet while I went to a nearby pawnshop.

I told the clerk— who was old enough and confident enough that he was probably the owner— that I needed a case of some sort that would easily hold something the size of the measurements I gave him. In pretty short order, we found a rectangular case for a tenor saxophone that would do, with one small modification— I'd have to cut out a bit of the formed plastic meant to hold the neck of the instrument, but I could do that. If Xander got home before we left, he could do it even more prettily, and would do so cheerfully— he loved to be of any sort of help he could to Buffy, even to me.

I told the pawnshop guy I'd take the sax case— then found myself wandering the section of the shop where he kept his musical instruments, looking at the guitars. One of them caught my eye, held it, and pretty much wouldn't let go. It had a beautiful look to it, and I could tell, somehow— I think some sort of bleedover from my magical senses— that it had been lovingly maintained and cared for.

"That's a nice one, isn't it?" the clerk asked, smiling a little himself. "It was made in the fifties, but you'd never know it to look at it— one owner, and he took care of it, you can tell." He gave a sort of bitter laugh and said, "When the old fella died, his grandson got the guitar, and he sold it to me— no appreciation for something like that, he was just glad I gave him two hundred for it."

"You sort of robbed him, didn't you?" I asked, and smiled to show the man that I understood the urge to rob an idiot who couldn't appreciate a guitar like this one.

"Yeah, I really did," the man said, and grinned at the memory. "If he'd been patient enough to learn about this baby, to put it up on eBay, he'd have got fifteen hundred easy, maybe twenty-five hundred, even."

"How much you want for it?" I asked, trying not to sound as eager as I was.

"You appreciate it," the clerk said, and looked back and forth between me and the guitar. "I can see that much— and I don't need to screw over anybody who can appreciate a fine instrument like this. Five hundred, and she's yours— case and all."

"Ring me up," I said, and let him case the guitar and hand it to me.

I went back to the office, found Xander standing in the door of Buffy's office and talking to her, and asked him about adapting the sax case to the Scythe. With a nod from Buffy, he agreed, but he didn't go right away.

"I forgot that you were learning to play guitar in the books," Xander said. He looked at my face and saw… I don't know what, but when he spoke again, he sounded as though he were trying to be comforting. "Play something?"

"I don't know, it's been… a long time," I said, and tried not to sigh.

"Come on, Harry," Buffy said, and she got up and headed for the little lobby. "I'd like to hear it, too."

I sighed, nodded, and went to sit in one of the chairs there. I took the guitar out, carefully, and Buffy let out a little sound of appreciation while Xander said, "Now that's just pretty."

"Yeah," I agreed, settling in and plucking one string at a time. It was almost in tune, and I got it all the way there in under a minute.

I started playing, not really thinking about what to play— and got one of the four songs that every guy I know who's over a certain age and plays guitar learns to play, which are; "Proud Mary," "House of the Rising Sun," "Hotel California," and the one I played— "Dust in the Wind," by a seventies rock group called Kansas.

I played, and I got lost in it, forgot that Xander and Buffy were there, didn't notice when Murphy came in. Next thing I knew of anything other than the world of me and the guitar, I was getting cramps in my hands from not having played in so long that playing for any length of time was too hard on my muscles.

"My god, Harry," Murphy said, staring at me with a new kind of appreciation. "That was gorgeous!"

"Ditto," Xander agreed, nodding almost frantically.

"Very," Buffy said, and sighed contentedly. "What was it you played after 'Dust in the Wind?' "

"It… doesn't have a title," I said, smiling a sad little smile. "Or… well. I think it has to be called 'Lash,' if I'm gonna call it anything."

"I never knew you'd gotten so good, Harry," Karrin said, looking pleasantly stunned. "That was— well, that sounded like professional playing to me."

"And again, I say, 'ditto,' Harry," Xander agreed.

"And Buffy makes three," Buffy said. She sighed, stood and stretched, then said, "Okay, back to the research— but you, sir, need to do whatever exercises there are to help you be able to play longer without your hands going all 'Caine Mutiny' on you."

"Yeah," I said, taking a deep breath. Playing had felt good, until my hands started protesting. "Yeah, I think I will.

"Hey, Murphy— how's your case going?"

"All wrapped up," she said with a satisfied nod. "You got something?"

"Oh, just the name of the man who actually, you know, _shot me_ last October." I smiled at her immediate predatory look— it's nice to have friends like Murphy— and added, "And an address for him, which, unfortunately is in Belgrade, Serbia. Buffy's seeing what she can find about the guy online, and I thought, after supper, I might go see him. Of course, if you'd like to come along in spite of the fact that we'll be entering Serbia illegally, carrying weapons illegally, threatening to beat this guy stupid illegally, if he doesn't tell us who paid him to kill me— which was also illegal, come to think of it— well, I'll be shocked, you being a former police officer and all."

"Be shocked," Murphy growled (and her growl was scarier than that of many large, scary men that I know— Karrin's pretty amazing). "Marcone came through?"

"He did," I agreed— and I showed her my teeth. "He also came to understand just how badly things are going to go for him the next time he gives one of my friends so much as a _paper cut."_

"Good," Murphy said, and settled back in her chair. "You can save telling me about _that_ conversation until I'm in a bad mood— it's sure to cheer me up."

I snorted, nodded, and put away my guitar, then took the case into my office and left it there, since I didn't want to go up the stairs or bother with Enenezar's "tech-safe" spell right then. Karrin had gone to see what Buffy was doing, and to help, so I sat down in my office and opened the book I was reading— the first in a fantasy series called the Codex Alera, a book called Furies of Calderone. I was maybe halfway through it, and already planning to read the rest of the series. Good stuff.

I got maybe ten more pages read before someone rapped on the frame of my office door. I looked up to see Xander leaning in the open doorway, and waved him in.

"Hey, Harry," Xander said, stepping in and hesitating. "Could I… well, can I close the door? There's something I want to talk to you about."

"Sure, come on in," I said, and set my book down on its face. (I _read_ my books, I don't preserve them for future generations, okay? Bookmarks are for sissies.) "What's on your mind, man?"

"It's about—" Xander stopped, looked at the open book face down on my desk, turned his head to make reading the title easier (sideways is easier than upside down), then busted out laughing, a full-scale belly laugh, no starting with chuckles and working up— just straight to the big, boisterous belly laugh.

"What?" I asked. "Come on, share!"

"Okay, well— I don't know if I should, Harry." Xander had dropped into a chair across from me, and now he was obviously trying to get himself under control. "Seriously, I don't know— I mean— look, will you promise that if I explain, you won't do anything about what I tell you without getting permission from Karrin, Buffy and… oh, let's add Michael to the mix. You don't do _anything_ about what I tell you unless all three agree. Okay?"

"Well… okay." I wasn't sure about that, but I really wanted to know what was so funny.

"That book— you enjoying it?" He indicated Furies of Calderone.

"Sure, it's a blast," I said, smiling a little. "Right down my alley, too— the lead character is the only one around who _can't_ do magic. I appreciate the irony."

"That's… that's good," Xander said, starting to laugh again. "I'm glad you like it, Harry, because— because…!"

Xander dissolved into laughter again, and I considered slapping him once, like he was having hysterics— but I am the soul of patience, and I waited it out.

(And if you believe that "soul of patience thing, I have some oceanfront property in Iowa that you're gonna love. Small bills, and non-sequential serial numbers only, please!)

"I'm sorry," Xander gasped finally. "I'm sorry, Harry— it's just that the books I read? The books about you?"

"Yes?" I said when he stopped.

"That book is by the same author!"

I stared at Xander for a moment.

I looked down at Furies of Calderone. The author's name was Jim Butcher.

"You sure?" I asked.

"Totally." Xander reached for the book, looked at me for permission, and I nodded. He picked it up, flipped to the last couple of pages inside the back cover, found the "about the author" section and read it. "And that makes dead certainty. Same blurb, same guy."

I sat and I thought about that for a moment— and decided that I approved. Hell, the guy knew how to write, and he had me entertained with that book— no bad there.

"Okay, that's a little… odd, but I can deal," I said, and nodded. "But that wasn't what you wanted to talk to me about, obviously.

"So what _is_ on your mind, Xander?"

"It's… about Buffy," Xander said, his face becoming serious, but not so serious as to be scary.

"What about her?" I prompted when he didn't go on.

"She's… well, Harry, she's been my best friend for thirteen years, you know?" he said, looking at me like that should explain something to me.

"I… hadn't thought about it that way, honestly," I admitted. "With the time jumps in the comic books and then all the things you did after that we never even read about… but, okay. That's a long time, man— and I think you're pretty lucky, but then, so is she."

Xander shot me a grin at that, sat up a little straighter, and said, "Thanks. That's… high praise.

"But anyway… I've known Buffy for something that's approaching half my life, Harry," he went on, his voice slow and careful, as though he didn't want to say anything wrong, or the wrong way. "I know her, Harry, really, really well— so I need to say something to you that… well, let's just say that I may be crossing lines, but I don't think so. And if I am, well, it's not like I don't have a good reason."

"What are you talking about, Xander?" I asked, now gone past puzzled and into the land of confusion.

"Buffy," Xander said slowly, "is falling in love with you, Harry."

I stared at him.

He nodded.

I stared some more.

"Oh, come on, Xander, that's… you're imagining things." I shook my head and sighed. "I don't think—"

"No, I knew you wouldn't think so," Xander said, and he sighed and shook his head. "But that's mostly because… Harry, you're a great detective, and a better wizard, but you're kind of a dummy about women.

"No, wait— strike 'kind of.' When it comes to women, you haven't got a clue."

"Hey!" I protested. "Now that's hardly fair, I've had girlfriends, I've had relationships, I've even got a daughter, and—"

"Your own brother said you were kind of an idiot about women, Harry," Xander reminded me. "And you eventually almost admitted that he was right."

"Damn it, that's— okay, well, I don't think you're right, not this time." I shook my head. "We're friends, good friends, and she—"

"She's not usually as touchy-feely with her guy-friends as she's been with you for the last couple of weeks," Xander said firmly. "I know. Thirteen years, remember?"

"Well, she's— come on Xander, what could possibly have happened that would lead to her falling in love with me?" I asked, and I was serious, not playing the humble game.

It was Xander's turn to stare for a minute or so. Finally, he shook his head, and said in a slow, wondering tone, "You're dumber than I thought. I can't believe it, but you really are that dumb."

"Hey!" I said, glaring at him. "I'm right here, okay?"

"And you're a dummy," Xander said firmly. He stood up and peered behind me, leaned this way and that. "Shouldn't there be a hand somewhere unmentionable, man?"

"Cut that out!" I said, and gave him a dark look. "What do you mean I'm a dummy?"

"Okay, let me ask you a question," Xander said, sighing and leaning towards me. "Before last New Year's Eve, how many women had you shared a Soulgaze with?"

I didn't have to think— you don't forget that sort of thing. "Five."

He frowned, and I could see him going over a mental list. "Elaine, Susan, Molly, that woman who works for Marcone and…?"

"A lawyer who'd been messed with mentally, when I was trying to help Morgan," I said, sighing at the thought of that poor woman. "I had to 'gaze her to find out who'd messed with her. It was a White Court bitch who's dead now, and she wasn't very careful about it."

"So, she wasn't really sane?" Xander asked. I nodded agreement, and he hesitated, then asked, "Uh, any idea about her sexuality?"

I looked at him really oddly, and he said hastily, "It matters, seriously."

"Pretty sure she was gay," I said, shrugging. "I don't see how—"

"So, let's review, here," Xander said immediately. "The Beckitt woman, the one working for Marcone, she hates your guts and probably isn't exactly a candidate for 'sanest woman in Chicago,' from what you said. True?"

"True enough," I agreed. "I mean, she blames me for losing out on her revenge against Marcone, and for her husband dying in prison. And she admits that she's not very sane."

"And the lawyer woman— gay, and also not really sane, yes?"

"Pretty much," I agreed. "But I don't see what that's got to do with anything."

"When you told us about your hunt for Maggie," Xander said slowly, "you said that both Susan and Murphy told you that Molly was in love with you. I've met Karrin, and she's maybe the sharpest woman I know, at least about not-monsters. From the things that happened in the last book I read, the one that ended up with Molly apprenticed to you, I think that's pretty damned accurate."

"I guess it probably was," I sighed. I shook my head a little. "Doesn't really matter, her and Carlos are an item, now, so she's obviously gotten past it. I don't see what it has to do with—"

"Merciful _Zeus,_ I give up!" Xander near exploded. He stood up, leaned across the desk, and knocked lightly on my forehead. "Hello-oooo? Anybody home?"

"Dammit, Xander, I don't see any—"

"You Soulgaze with Elaine— and you two fall in love," Xander said softly, leaning forward on the desk and staring at my eyebrows to avoid a Soulgaze between us. "You Soulgaze with Susan— and you two become lovers, you eventually ask her to marry you, for Pete's sake. You Soulgaze with Molly, and she falls in love with you. You've known her since she was a little girl, so you've got natural armor there, I get that.

"But of the three sane women you Soulgazed before Buffy, three of them fell in love with you, you _blithering idiot_— and Buffy _is not insane!"_

I sat and I stared at him for a long, long moment, before I managed to say a very small, "Oh."

"Yes, 'oh,' thank you!" Xander said, and he dropped back into the chair.

"I'm not saying it would happen with any sane, hetero-or-bi woman whom you Soulgazed, Harry," Xander said softly. "I'm just saying that when the woman is someone you have things in common with, whom you like anyway, and who likes you?

"Then I think there's a really good chance. And it's happening with Buffy, maybe already has happened, and she's just… not realized it yet. She can be as slow as you about this sort of thing.

"Now, I'm gonna be a nosy, interfering best-friend-busybody, and ask you the obvious ques—"

"Yeah," I said, very quietly. "Yeah, I… well. I was trying to avoid thinking about it, because I didn't think… I mean, I'm not all that great a guy, an—"

Both of Xander's hands slammed down on my desk hard enough to startle the hell out of me— he'd leapt to his feet, slammed his hands down, and now had his face a couple of inches from mine.

"Would you _shut up_ with that crap!" he said, his voice pleasant enough, but with a hard edge underneath. "In the eight books I read, you managed to tell me— in the process of telling yourself— how you weren't a good guy, how you were secretly an asshole, how some deep part of you wanted to be powerful, wanted to take the easy road, wanted to just kill all your enemies and scare the rest of the world into treating you nicely.

"That is bullshit, Harry! You're no saint, I get it— but you're a goddamned _hero,_ a man with a conscience and a heart that's so big it's always getting you in trouble.

"Sure, you sometimes wish you could take the easy way out, you wish you could just wipe your enemies out and be done with it, sometimes you want the power to just force the world to straighten up and fly right! Well, guess what!

"So do I! So does Buffy! So does Dawn! So does your grandfather, so does Michael— it's a part of being human!

"The important part, Harry, the part that you never learned— and maybe it's good that you didn't, that you have this obsession with doing the right thing, but maybe it's time that you did learn, dammit!— is that that's not a sign that you're a bad guy, not any of it!

"It's a sign that you're a human being, man! That's all! It just means that you're as human as the rest of us.

"But that you worry about it, that you've faced all you have and never taken up the evil power, that you've walked away from hexenwolf belts that were _made_ to be addictive, that you turned down the power of the winter knight until it was literally the only thing that could let you save your daughter, that you had the shadow of a fallen freaking _angel_ in your head for four years, and you never took up that coin that held the rest of her, even when you thought you were going to die if you didn't? All of those things mean that you're a hell of a good man!

"We won't even _talk_ about the incredible power of personality, of sheer _conviction_ that caused the sentient copy of a fallen angel to turn back to the light after just four years of living in your head— and never mind the eons of promoting darkness that said fallen angel remembered before she took up residence in your head!

"Dammit, Harry, I'm not even gay, and I'm afraid to get into a Soulgaze with you for fear of finding out I'm bisexual all of the sudden!"

For a long moment, I could only sit there with my mouth open—

Then that last comment sank in— and all I could do was bust out laughing.

Xander joined me in that laughter right away, and we laughed for a good ten minutes before we finally managed to stop.


	13. Chapter 13

_Interlude:_

_ID and money— those two things together make life much easier,_ she thought as she checked into a nice hotel rather than the sort of place that didn't ask for ID. She'd had enough of roaches, the smell of urine and walls so thin you could hear a whispered conversation two rooms down.

There were things left to do, of course, but a brief rest would do her good. Besides, she had to make an appointment if she was going to accomplish her next goal— the old man didn't do walk-ins.

She stayed in the hotel for three days, relaxed, read from the pile of books she'd bought— her last…. _assignment_ had taught her to love reading again, and it was such a cheap addiction— and spent time in the hotel's gymnasium and pool, worked on conditioning herself and recovering from this body's long coma the rest of the way.

She managed to make her appointment on the third day, and she set off immediately— it would take her some time to get where she needed to be.

Twenty-four hours later, she sat across from the man she'd sought an audience with, and he looked at her with his head tilted on one side.

"I do not recall ever having met you, young lady," he said after a moment of studying her. "Yet when you made this appointment, you spoke of things that… very few beings of any stripe know about. May I ask how you came to know these things?"

"You have the right to know, sir," she answered slowly. This was the greatest moment of risk in her plan, or at least, the greatest that didn't involve magic flying every which way and violence erupting from every direction. "I was not always the girl you see before you. I am… something new to the world, I believe. New and different.

"But once… I was among those you called enemies. No longer do I count myself among that number, and I believe… no, I _know_ that they would kill me if they found out about my existence."

For a long moment, the old man simply gazed at her, unblinking. Finally, he said, "I admire courage, even in an enemy. To admit that you were once an enemy of mine is not something a coward does.

"Will you name yourself?"

She hesitated, then said slowly, "I am not who I was then— but I will tell you the name I wore when last we crossed purposes, yes." She took a long, deep breath, held it for but a moment… and said the name as she exhaled.

The old man froze. For a moment, he simply stared at her, then he said in a voice like quiet, distant thunder, "Tell me what has changed. Convince me. If you fail… you die."

"You know one such change already," she replied, her voice unsteady. "I _can_ die. That is… a great change."

"A valid point," the old man said, his voice level— but not trusting. "Tell me how you became what you are— and why I should trust you."

She spoke for ten minutes, and she told him the absolute truth. He listened to her, and once he muttered a curse in an old form of an old language— but he did not interrupt.

"…and here I am— something that has never before been." She tilted her head in thought for a moment, then said, "That's rather egotistical, isn't it? I don't actually know that I am unique.

"Something that I don't _believe_ has ever been before."

The old man sat and looked at her in silence for so long that she became unnerved, and had to find something to look at besides him. She stared down at her hands for a long five minutes, then he spoke.

"Look at me."

She didn't dare disobey.

"I believe you." He actually smiled as she sighed in relief, and he asked, "So… why did you come to me?"

"I have something to trade with you," she said, her voice still respectful and quiet. "I… you understand why I am doing what I am?"

"I do." He said no more, simply waited on her.

"I would ask of you a boon," she said her tone formal and calm, "and offer in return information that you would value highly, I believe."

"What information would you offer?" he asked— and laughed when she raised an eyebrow at him skeptically. "I beg your pardon— what nature of information would you offer?"

"I would give you a location," she said very quietly, "for one whom you have long sought— and tell you how he hides from you."

The old man sat bolt upright and stared at her. He said a name, very quietly, and in the tones of a question.

She nodded.

"And the boon you would ask in return for that information?" the old man asked, his voice carefully and deliberately neutral— it was a bad idea to let someone exactly how much you wanted something they had.

"A simple refusal of service," she said softly, smiling just a little. "If there is a contract in effect, pay the penalties and buy your way out of it— and never sell or offer any of your services to the client in question ever again."

Understanding dawned, and the old man fought against a smile and lost. "You fear him?"

"I fear what he may do," she corrected. "He is… not all that he believes he is— but he could be a problem."

"I see." The old man looked at her and sighed. "He'll only turn elsewhere for help, you know."

"I know," she said. She shrugged elaborately, then said, "All flattery aside, I do not believe that there is anyone else who could provide the level of effective help that you do."

"A good point." The old man nodded, then stood. The young woman— well, she certainly _looked_ like a young woman— stood too, and he offered her his hand. "You have a bargain."

She shook his hand, moved closer to him without letting go of his hand, placed one hand on his shoulder, pulled herself up and him down (he was _very_ tall), and whispered in his ear for most of thirty seconds, gave him the information he'd bargained for.

"Son of a bitch," the old man said softly when she stopped speaking and lowered herself from her toes. "I never would have thought of that… but then again, he _is_ a tricky one.

"Thank you, young lady. I will complete my end within the hour— I need to see what I will have to do to buy back the contract in both the mundane world and according to the Unseelie Accords."

"Thank you, sir," she said, and bowed formally to him.

The old man actually returned that courtesy, to her surprise, and at her immediate blush-and-stammer, he laughed and said, "When, exactly, is the last time _you_ blushed?"

She thought about it for a long moment, then looked up at the old man and bounced up on her toes to kiss his cheek. He looked down at her, startled but not displeased, and she smiled at him.

"That was the first time ever, sir," she said, blushing still more and enjoying it, "and I thank you for calling it to my attention."

She left then, leaving the old man standing alone in the room and chuckling.

_Harry:_

When we finally stopped laughing, Xander sat up, looked at me, and said, "Okay, now that we have straight that you are not a bad guy— finally!— what do you want to do about this thing with Buffy? I only ask because you guys are my friends, and I want to help if I can."

"I… don't really know," I said, shaking my head. I got a Coke out of the cooler behind my desk, passed it to him, took another for myself. "I guess I really am kind of a dunce about women. What would you recommend?"

"Given my own personal track record with women," Xander said, his voice dry, "I'd normally recommend asking anyone besides me that question. However, under these circumstances… well, I'd recommend waiting until Buffy notices how she feels about you, what it's grown into. Might take a while— she can be slow about that, and she's… still carrying some hurt over Willow, and maybe even a little over Angel, though I think that's more nostalgia than actual hurt. I mean, the guy fell for the same stupid trick twice, and he got a lot of people Buffy cared about, felt responsible for, hurt and killed the second time around.

"But I can tell you with confidence Harry… when she notices that she's gone and fallen for you, she'll let you know. She's pretty good at 'direct,' our slayer is."

"Okay," I said, and tried not to show my relief. I really do kinda suck at the wooing thing. I snorted a little instead and said, "Thanks, Xander. I was… telling myself it could never happen."

"Any particular reason?" Xander asked, sounding both curious and amused.

"Well, part of it was… what you just gave me hell about a few minutes ago," I said, and felt myself begin to blush. "The rest though… I thought that maybe she'd be looking for a woman again. I mean, Satsu, then Willow…."

"And sometimes, when she doesn't think anyone's noticing, Buff very much stares at Molly when she's around," Xander said, nodding and smirking as I blushed a little more. "You noticed, huh?"

"Yeah," I admitted. "And a couple times when we've been out— working, mostly, but a couple times when we went to lunch together just because— I've spotted a gorgeous woman by following Buffy's eyes."

"Yeah, I get that," Xander said, and nodded. "However, you seem to have failed to notice the guys she occasionally stares at. Carlos, for one. Michael's oldest son for another. Your brother, though that can be a hard one, because she's staring at Justine, too, which I can totally get behind. And you for a fourth."

"Yeah, I missed those," I admitted. Then I corrected myself. "Except for Justine— but I'm right there with her and you on that one."

"Look, I never, ever thought I'd say this about Buffy," Xander said with an exaggerated sigh, "but I think she's probably pretty comfortable with thinking of herself as bisexual. Which I credit to Willow. Satsu… that was exactly what you thought, the first time— loneliness mostly, but I do think that Buffy's admiration for Satsu— and she did admire her, for a lot of reasons, including that she was freaking gorgeous— contributed to Buffy letting herself be seduced." Xander shook his head. "I mean it. Satsu was a total babe, probably still is."

I made an interrogative sound, and he smiled a little sadly. "I saw Satsu leading the other girls away from the battlefield, just before I got pulled into the gateway to the Wherever-never. She was pretty banged up, but she was moving under her own power, and half-carrying a wounded girl.

"Anyway— Willow, she was sort of an activist about equal treatment for people of all varieties, and I think being with her for as long as she was let Buffy get comfortable with the idea that it's okay for her to be attracted to women as well as men. I think she leans towards guys a little, still, but that doesn't really matter.

"What matters is that she leans heavily towards you, man."

I raised my can of Coke to that, and he matched me. "Thanks, Xander. I guess— well, I might have really screwed this up if you hadn't yelled at me."

"Ah, what are friends for, if not to tell you when you're being an idiot?" Xander asked, smiling to take the sting from the words.

"I don't know," I agreed, and snorted. "Mine do seem to spend a lot of time telling me that."

"Aw, man, do know how hard it is to leave a straight line like that lying there without using it?" Xander complained, standing up. "Come on, Harry, that's not even fair."

I laughed, stood, and shook his hand before I let him leave, then I sat down to read my book some more.

At a few minutes after six, Buffy and Murphy came in to give me what they'd found on the man who'd shot me.

Javor Gavrilovic was a thirty-three year old man, originally from some small Serbian town that none of us could begin to even try to pronounce. He'd entered the military at the age of eighteen, stayed until he was twenty-six. In the military, he'd started as a simple infantryman, then gone on to the Serbian Army equivalent of special forces training. After that, he'd gone on to become a sniper, a paratrooper, and pretty much every other kind of specialist that a soldier in the field could be, and he'd cross-trained with American Army Rangers, British Special Air Services and other groups. Finally, after eight years in the Serbian army, he got out— and less than six months later, did his first murder for hire.

Gavrilovic was a specialist; you hired him only when your target was hard to get at, and you didn't mind people knowing that it was a hit. If you wanted an accident, he wasn't a lot of help— but when your target never left his compound in the jungle and needed to be shot there from a half a mile away? Or was a wizard who could defend himself if he saw you coming, probably kill you with his death curse even if you got him first? Gavrilovic could do it for you— for the price.

If the buzz on the internet was to be believed, the man was responsible for nine contract killings in the last seven years, and he didn't come cheap; rumor was that his prices started at a million Euros and went up from there based on difficulty.

Buffy had even converted the million Euros for me— seems that my life had been worth (at the minimum) around one-point-four million bucks American.

Nice to know I wasn't a cheap date, right?

"So," Murphy said when they'd finished briefing me, "what's the plan, Harry?"

"I can't go into his house after him," I said, sighing in frustration. "I mean, the guy's never going to invite me in after he killed me. Even if he thinks he missed and I lived somehow? I'm not getting an invite. And I can't just barge in and leave my power on his threshold. Sooooo… one of you will have to bring Gavrilovic out for me. Then I'm going to ask him some very, very pointed questions."

"I can bring Gavel-guy out," Buffy said, nodding easily. "But what do we do if he doesn't want to answer your questions?"

"We make him want to," I said, grinning a wicked grin. "I can't kill the guy with magic, I can't even torture him with magic— it'd make me sick to even try. Thing is… I kinda doubt that a man who tried to kill me is going to believe that, even if he knows about the laws of magic, and how seriously I take them in this instance."

"Ah," Murphy said, nodding at me. "So, am I good cop to your bad cop?"

"No, not really," I said, and gave Karrin my best 'now I'm going to kill something' lunatic grin. "More like you're bad cop, Buffy's worse cop, and I'm psycho-demon-cop-from-hell."

"Oh, well," Karrin said, her eyes picking up a wicked gleam, "that sounds like even more fun!"

"It's gonna be late there," I said thoughtfully. "Especially since we should probably eat before we go— I'm buying— and there's a seven hour time difference forward….

"I don't suppose you found anything about the guy's hobbies or anything online?"

"He has a Facebook page," Buffy said, and handed me a printout of the page, which served only to show me what Gavrilovic looked like, since it was in Serbian. "Dawn's translating it, I called her, she'll be down with the translation in a couple."

"She speaks Serbian?" I said, surprised.

"No, but she speaks something related to it, and can puzzle it out," Buffy said with satisfaction. "She's a smart one."

"I hear that," I agreed. "So— how about we order out?"

Buffy called for food from a deli a couple blocks down— we all knew each other's food preferences by then— and we were just finishing our sandwiches and chips when the elevator opened (the back opened into the offices, the front into the entry foyer for the apartments) and Dawn stepped out with several sheets of paper in her hand. She came over, sat down, and handed Buffy the papers.

"I don't know how useful that's going to be, but there you go," Dawn said. She eyed Buffy's remaining few potato chips, and when Buffy nodded, snagged a couple. "Mostly, he fancies himself a ladies man, and he likes his clubs and dancing. From the look of his Facebook page and friends list, the ladies pretty much agree."

"Hmm," Buffy said thoughtfully. "Dawn, think you could find out how late the clubs are open in Belgrade on a Monday night?"

Dawn snorted in derision and said, "Of course. Can I use the computer in your office?"

"Go for it," Buffy said. She looked around at me as Dawn went to use her computer and said, "Maybe we can catch him before he gets home and inside. That'd be convenient— especially since you still aren't a hundred percent, Harry. How's your side feel?"

"Not bad," I said, and shifted a little. "So long as I don't take off running, try to pick up much over twenty pounds, or get hit there, I'm good."

"So we play it cautious," Buffy said, looking to Karrin for support.

"Yes," Karrin agreed, and she gave me a hard look. "And not just for your reasons, Buffy— for your safety and mine, Harry has to stay healthy."

I grunted a question, and Murph understood. (Probably because of all those years working in the largely-male-dominated world of law enforcement.)

"Harry, if anything happens to you, Buffy and I are in deep trouble," Karrin said with exaggerated patience. "We'll be stuck in a foreign country where we don't speak the language— without passports and with no explanation of how we got there. Can you say 'take the American spies to the gulag,' Harry?"

"Oh," I said, feeling stupid. "Right. Okay. Careful it is. Or, you know, as careful as I can be."

"We're doomed," Murphy muttered, and went to her office to get the equipment she wanted for the trip. "Doomed, I tell you."

"Bite me," I called after her, my voice cheerful.

Dawn came out of Buffy's office a couple of minutes later and said, "There's no law about what time a club has to close in Belgrade, so most of them open late and close around three or four in the morning— some later, a few earlier. But there's a good chance your boy will be out late partying, if his Facebook page is any indication."

"Okay, well," I said, standing and heading for my office, "let me get kitted up, and we'll get moving. Dawn, don't forget to turn in a time sheet for this."

"Harry, you don't have to pay me for—"

"Are you back-talking your landlord, young lady?" I asked her as I stopped in the doorway to my office. "I hear he gives you a discount on your rent, so that might not be the best idea, you know."

"Fine," Dawn sighed, raising her hands in capitulation. "Okay, I'll add it to my time sheet— but you really, really don't have to pay me, I _like_ helping!"

"You're fighting male pride, Dawn," Buffy said as she headed for the elevator, presumably to get the Scythe. "Didn't I teach you about battles you can't win, and how you just don't fight them?"

"Okay, I surrender," Dawn said. She came over and hugged my arm and pecked my cheek. "Over-generous beast of a landlord."

"It's a battle she can't win, she admits that— and she still gets the last word," I sighed as I reached for my staff, blasting rod and duster. "Somebody's gonna have to explain to me how that works, someday."

"Feminine mystique," Murphy said primly as she came out of her office dressed for combat— but with a long pullover sweater in blood red over her black tactical gear for camouflage. "You're not _allowed_ to understand, Dresden."

"Figures." I checked that I had my shield bracelet, wished I'd had time to finish my first kinetic ring at least, and sighed. "Murphy, is it wrong to be looking forward to scaring the crap out of this guy?"

"After what he did to you?" Murphy shook her head and smiled a little. "If you weren't looking forward to it, I'd be worried, Harry."

"Thanks, Karrin."

"Just remember that it's stopping at scaring him, and I won't have to kick your ass," she added sweetly.

"Yes, ma'am."

"And don't call me 'ma'am,' that's for old ladies."

"Okay, Murph."

The elevator pinged, the doors opened, and Buffy came out carrying the sax case I'd bought and Xander had modified.

"Armed and dangerous," Buffy said as she came out. "So where do we start from?"

"A little jazz club downtown," I said, and headed for Captain Midnight. "There's a good parking garage in the same block, I'll drive."

"Shotgun," Murphy said immediately.

"You have seniority," Buffy said with equanimity. "I can handle it— I think the back seat of the good Captain is bigger than my dorm room at UC Sunnydale."

Murphy and I snorted laughter, and we all headed for the car.

At the Last Trumpet, I led Murph and Buffy into the alley beside it, touched the gem at the center of my pentacle necklace and listened to my Mother's voice say, "This entrance to the Ways leads to a dirt path covered by what is plainly a cultivated arch of trees overhead. At the end of the path is a standing stone; the next gate is to be opened on the side marked with my initials, and will bring you out on a lakeshore with a copse of trees behind you. Open the gateway to…."

I listened for a long moment, then looked at the others. "Three stage trip, no danger so long as you stay close to me, and don't leave the road in the last part. I don't know what happens if you do— but my mother said it was, and I quote, 'certain death for anyone human, be they a wizard or not,' end quote."

"Got it," Murphy said, nodding.

"No problem," Buffy said. "I like not dying, I'll be good."

I led the way, and things were fine— though I know I was a little unnerved by that last stage; we found ourselves walking on a road of what looked like pale orange plastic, and that gave a little under foot. The sky itself gave off a dim gray light, no sun was visible, yet the road cut through a thriving jungle— and off the road on both sides of us, pacing us from the start of our journey through that weird place to the finish, were freaking _dinosaurs_. Big ones, plainly carnivorous, but not of any species I'd ever read about or seen on TV. These looked like Velociraptors built on the scale of an Allosaurus, but they had long, strong-looking arms, wore metal armor, and carried weapons that put me in mind of those used by Roman centurions in the heyday of the Empire, only, you know, _bigger_.

Cuh-_reepy_.

"Okay, that was not my idea of a good vacation spot," Murphy said with a little shiver as we stepped out into a small park near downtown Belgrade. "I mean, dinosaurs are bad enough, but intelligent, tool-using, armor-wearing dinosaurs? Ugh."

"I second your ugh, and add one 'ew,' Karrin," Buffy said, shaking her head. "That's just not right."

"Motion carried, no stopping there on the way home," I agreed. I looked around, straightened my duster, and said, "Gavrilovic's house is about a mile from here— let's get walking."

We walked, and we stared around a lot. Belgrade is a pretty city, or at least parts of it are, including the part we were in. The architecture all seemed old, from at least a hundred years before, more like a hundred and fifty or so, and some of it looked even older. The few businesses we passed were all closed— there didn't seem to be any clubs in this part of town— and all had that indefinable air that says "privately owned." I saw no neon in windows, no corporate logos, just old shops with wooden signs, and a spotlight mounted to illuminate the signs after dark.

We passed out of the business district in just a couple of blocks, and the houses looked to be from about the same period. All were big, though most had small lawns, or no lawn at all, and they had the look and feel of homes for the wealthy. Made sense, given that my killer charged over a million dollars per contract.

"This place is… gorgeous," Karrin said after a bit. "I mean— this is like the best of Old Chicago, only with more history behind it."

"America is pretty young, as nations go," I said, nodding agreement. "This place… it feels like Edinburgh— old in a way no American city can be."

"Yes," Karrin said, looking around. "I could live here, I think— if I wanted to leave Chicago, which isn't really in my plans."

"You leave Chicago and the place might not survive," I snorted. "How long have there been Murphys patrolling the streets of Chicago, again?"

"A long time," Karrin said, and gave me a little smile in appreciation of the phrasing— she'd been a cop a long time, and she still missed it. "I'll probably never move away— but this place might make a good vacation spot."

"Gives me the creeps," Buffy said from Karrin's other side. "All this old architecture… only place I ever used to see that was in tombs, you know?" She shook her head and sighed. "This town practically _oozes_ 'vampires welcome,' I think."

"Yuck," Murphy said, and made a face. "I think the phrase I want is 'buzzkill,' Buffy."

"Sorry," Buffy muttered. "It's just… I don't like the feel of this place. Seriously, it reminds me of Sunnydale in the bad ways."

"And on that note," I sighed, "we should keep our eyes peeled— slayer instincts are only ignored by the sort of people who get drunk and have casual sex while there's a crazy guy running around killing people."

"Good point," Murphy said, and we all three started paying more attention to our surroundings, or maybe I should say "more professional attention."

Nothing attacked us, or followed us, and we reached Gavrilovic's house with no problems, and saw only a one couple, obviously drunk, who'd gone into a house we passed.

"Wow," Buffy said as we stopped across the street from Gavrilovic's place. "Harry, would you be upset if I quit the PI business to become a hitperson?"

"Yeah, I would," I said, staring at the place myself. "But I sure do understand the temptation."

"Is this place a mansion trying to be a castle," Murphy asked slowly, "or just a miniature castle?"

"I'm gonna go with the former," Buffy said, "but only because there's no moat or drawbridge, Karrin."

Gavrilovic's mansion was a three story thing that took up a quarter of the large block it sat on. Built of gray stone, it had huge windows, balconies scattered across its face on the upper two stories, and something about the place practically _screamed_ "FORTRESS!"

"Porch light's on," I observed, though the 'porch' was more like an outdoor foyer— heavy columns supported a slate roof that extended a good twenty feet from the house. A stone-construction railing surrounded it, and ivy, just beginning to go green again, had climbed heavy wooden trellises that ran from the tops of the stone railings to the bottom of the roof. "So odds are he's out."

"Where should we wait for him?" Karrin asked. She looked behind us, at a small park that held some playground equipment, some huge old trees and a few benches and picnic tables. "Can you go on the porch without your power getting held up, or is there a threshold there, too?"

"This is one guy living in a huge old house," I said thoughtfully. "From the things Dawn said, he plays the field a lot, doesn't stick to any one woman, isn't exactly the family type…. I'd be worried if this was a family place like Michael's, but going on the porch here is about as likely to weaken me as a good steak dinner is."

"Give it a try, first," Buffy said, then grabbed my arm when I started to step forward. "Hang on a second, hero— let me and Karrin see about alarms first, 'kay?"

"Oh, right," I said, smacking myself in the forehead. "Man, I could really get used to this. You two have spoiled me for working alone."

"Flatterer," Buffy said as she and Murphy started forward, then split up and went left and right respectively as they reached the three steps up to the porch.

It took them less than two minutes to decide that Javor Gavrilovic wasn't so paranoid that he had a burglar alarm system that extended to his porch— but they did tell me not to touch the door or the windows, because those were alarmed.

"That being the case," I sighed, "I think I'd best stay off the porch. If I screw up the system with my anti-tech field, it might shut off, but it might also _go_ off."

"Good thinking," Murphy said, and nodded at me. "However, neither Buffy nor I have that problem. Buffy? Porch or park?"

"I'll take park." Buffy grinned at Karrin and said, "You've got that thing Molly made for you— you'll be practically invisible up here. I'd just be hard to spot."

"My god, it's nice to work with professionals," Murphy grinned. "I could've used you in SI, Buffy."

"Thanks," she said, and turned to look at me. "So, Harry— are we hiding in the park, or sitting there like normal people?"

"Hiding, I think," I said after a moment's thought. "This guy's a professional killer— he's likely to remember my face, Buffy."

"I don't believe it," Murphy said as she started up the steps to the porch. "The professionalism is rubbing off on Dresden…."

"Ha, ha," I muttered. "Did I mention that I'm cutting your pay?"

"Did I mention that Vince Graver offered to hire me away from you at ten percent over whatever you're paying me?" she asked from the top step.

"Miserable headhunter," I grumbled. "See if I subcontract to him ever again."

Murphy laughed, took a single step onto the porch— and seemed to vanish from sight, thanks to the charm Molly had made her that increased the shadows near her, and decreased the sounds she made.

"I told Molly that I want one of those for Christmas," Buffy said, and turned towards the park. "I mean seriously— sneaky-enhanced slayer is a good thing!"

"I can't argue," I said, and followed her. "You pick the hiding place. I'm not so good at sneaky. Or, you know, subtle."

"Typical male, then," Buffy said, and laughed at my mock glare. "No problem— I can see a bunch of good places to hide from here, even considering that you're a foot and a half taller than me.

"You ever thought of giving up the wizard's life and trying out for the Bulls, Harry?"

"Nah," I said, following Buffy into a little grove of elms that were budding nicely. "I'd probably short out the scoreboard while I was running under it, get a shower of sparks, catch my uniform on fire and embarrass myself silly by stripping it off on the court."

Buffy laughed, pulled me a little deeper into the grove, and said, "Wow, that's well thought out— do you plan all your potential embarrassments that thoroughly?"

"No, just the ones that could happen in front of thousands of people," I told her.

"Well, it's pretty cool that you can make a joke like that, I think." She snagged my left hand, ran a finger around the ring of burn scar tissue that still circled that wrist, and then up the outside of my little finger. "Given how bad Xander says this was? I'm surprised you can joke about burning at all."

"It took a while," I admitted. "For a long time I… well, I didn't use fire magic, and that's my strongest field. It was… well. Once I got to where I could toss around fire again, the rest of it came pretty easy."

"That makes sense, in a guy kind of way," Buffy said, and let go of my hand.

"Now don't you start," I protested. "I get enough of the whole 'men are inferior' thing from Murphy."

"Hey, show me a male slayer, and I'll shut right up," Buffy said as she turned to peer out of our hiding place. "Okay, this works— great view in both directions. Any idea where the club district is?"

"That way," I said, pointing west. "Look at the light pollution over there."

"Oh, hey, you really are a detective," Buffy said. She looked back at me and said, "Okay, I'll watch this way, you look the other way."

"Okay."

We watched for maybe fifteen minutes before Buffy said, "Hey— there's a car coming this way, and— yeah, it's a cab. I think. Do Serbian cabs have the little light on top like American cabs? And British ones?"

I moved that way, looked over her shoulder, and agreed that it was a cab. "Pretty sure they do— and it's slowing down." I moved deeper into the trees, let Buffy stay where she was. "Is it slowing down?"

"It is," she confirmed. She opened the case she still carried and took out the Scythe as she continued. "And it's stopped right in— okay, that's him, and he's got a girl with him. Major hottie, too… uh, sorry."

I chuckled and said, "Let's go."

The cab pulled away as Buffy and I slipped out of the grove of elms and started towards the house. Javor Gavrilovic wasn't hurrying inside, he was standing on the sidewalk where he and his companion had gotten out of the cab, and they were kissing like teenagers in lust. From what I could see, I agreed with Buffy— the woman looked like a beauty, long black hair, a snug red dress that she filled nicely, and skin that was very pale.

We got to the edge of the street, and Gavrilovic looked up at some sound one of us (probably me, I admit it) made— and he said something in a language that I'm guessing was Serbian, and I'm pretty sure it wasn't "nice to see you" by his tone.

Even as Gavrilovic shoved his date away from him and fell into a combat stance, he whistled a three-note sequence really loudly— and somewhere nearby, glass broke.

I very suddenly smelled death, decay and rot— and I swore and glanced towards the house as two forms pulled themselves out of the broken basement windows with surprising agility for what looked like a couple of half-rotting corpses.

I heard the sound of a single blow, looked back to see Buffy standing over Gavrilovic and pulling his date away as she backed up hurriedly.

"Zombies?" Buffy sighed. "Damn, I hate the smell of—"

"Buffy, no!" I yelled as she stepped forward. "Those aren't zombies they're—"

One of the two figures blurred forward, punched Buffy in the stomach, and sent her flying backwards head over heels.

"Black Court vampires!" I finished as I called up my will and prepared to throw down with some of the most powerful humanoid monsters on the planet.


	14. Chapter 14

_Interlude:_

Step one was taken care of. On to step two.

She returned to the United States via the Ways. She wasn't the expert at moving through them that Maggie McCoy-Dresden had been but she knew enough to do so safely and fairly quickly. It took her two hours to get from Northern Europe to the American Midwest, and she saw no thinking beings on the trip, to her relief. She had nightmares about running into some self-important jackass from the White Council and having to try to explain herself to them.

She knew her power levels were sufficient for membership on the White Council of Wizards, but really, she'd rather join— well, pretty much _any_ other organization short of the Westboro Baptist Church, or the group she had belonged to for most of her existence.

"I'd rather be an alcoholic heroin junkie with eczema and a body-hair issue than join the White Council," she muttered as she stepped out of the Nevernever and into Chicago's Union Station, appearing in a little alcove between an employees' restroom and a janitor's closet. "Well, okay, maybe not— but I'd rather be a Jehovah's Witness, and from me, that's saying a _lot_."

She headed to the street, found a hotel that didn't charge insane rates, and settled in.

A part of her wanted to reveal herself now, to get it over with— but she knew better. She needed to stay out of sight, to be quiet and wait. Patience would get her more than impulsiveness— and was more likely to let her accomplish her goals besides.

But waiting was hard, now. Once, waiting had been one of her great strengths, but now… she hated it. It was hard, it didn't come easily, she didn't want to do it, and—

"My god, I sound like a child," she sighed aloud. "I will wait. There will be a perfect moment to strike— and I will wait for it."

In the meantime, a shower would help her relax. And a meal. Then she could work on her magics— she needed to learn to be even more frugal with power than had always been her habit; she had so much _less_ power now, it was frustrating.

A shower-turned-bath and a meal did help her relax— too much, almost. She ended up falling asleep almost as soon as she returned to her room from the restaurant where she ate.

She woke at about four in the morning, fully dressed and on top of the covers, felt both chilly and somehow clammy. She undressed, showered briefly to get rid of that sweat-clammy sensation, and went back to bed.

"Mortality sucks," she murmured, just before sleep took her.

_Harry:_

Black Court vampires are terrifying monsters, as monsters go, and I really hate dealing with them. Still, I do have one advantage over them that I don't over lots of monsters; fire is a _serious_ problem for them.

"I'm good with fire," I muttered as I brought my shield up, prepared for kinetic energy, and angled it so that if the Black Court vamp who was charging at me hit the shield, he wasn't likely to drive me back or to the ground.

Black Court vampires are a lot like Dracula in the book about him, which, according to rumor, was written by Bram Stoker while he was under the influence of a White Court vampire. The White and Black Courts have always hated each other, probably because they're as opposite as you can get and still both call yourselves vampires.

The White Court: Vampires that eat life-energy, not blood, and tend to feed off of specific emotions— despair, fear and lust are the three kinds that I've dealt with, lust being the most often. White Court vamps tend to be physically attractive, also, regardless of the emotion they drain. Also, as a rule, they prefer all of their existence to be played out in subtlety; relationships, politics, even war, are played as games where the surest way to lose is to act overtly, blatantly and without style.

Even their feeding is different— White Court vamps do kill, some more often than others, but they don't have to— and most of the older members of the White Court, as well as many of the most powerful (not always the same thing) consider it gauche to do so except in dire need. Also, White Court vamps are born, not made, and can, under certain circumstances, avoid inheriting the vampire part, if their family wants it so and makes an effort to make it happen. (You can imagine how rare _that_ is, I'll bet!)

The Black Court: Corpses that walk around, and, for the first year or two of their existence, look like runny zombies. After that, they tend to dry up and look dry zombies, or maybe like an unwrapped mummy. Regardless, they're ugly.

When they feed, the victim invariably dies— usually messily and in great pain. The older kind— called "Rukhs"— can create vampires when they do this, and often do. Those the elders create can also create vampires, when they kill, but the ones the second generation creates are generally near-mindless monsters that exist only to feed, and can't generate more vampires.

All Black Court vampires are hideously strong, tough and fast, far above what Stoker depicted Dracula as being in the novel— he probably thought that no one would believe a bunch of human men could beat the actual Black Court vamps if he made them as scary as they really are.

On the plus side, he got most of their weaknesses right; holy items, holy ground and running water can hold them at bay (they can cross running water, but it's easiest for them to do so in their coffins, or in bat form— which only the older, more powerful vampires can actually do). Garlic, holy symbols, sunlight and fire can destroy them, along with being beheaded. A wooden stake through the heart won't kill them, but it makes them incapable of moving— they fall down and twitch a lot if you stake them.

But fire… that's my favorite of their weaknesses.

The charging vampire hit my shield with both hands, trying to simply slam his way through it, and the shock of the blow, despite my careful angling of the quarter-dome of force, did stagger me just a bit— the vampire had been smart enough to hit lower on the shield, rather than trying to lean out over it and hit above my arm, and the better leverage gave him more force to stagger me with. Still, it wasn't much— and he'd stopped running.

I dropped the shield, aimed my staff at the vampire and bellowed, "FORZARÉ!" as I sent my will through the oak rod. At the last second, just as the invisible force leapt out of my staff and slammed towards the vampire, I jerked the tip of the rod up just a little bit.

The vampire who'd attacked me flew away from me at a slight upwards angle, headed almost straight down the street. He wouldn't hit any buildings as he came down, so wasn't likely to attack any innocents.

"I'm good," I muttered as I drew my blasting rod, then turned to see what was happening with Buffy and her vampire.

The one shot she'd taken from the vampire hadn't apparently done Buffy any serious harm. She was fighting the thing, not quite going toe-to-toe with it, but certainly attacking it a lot more directly than anyone else I'd ever seen fight one up close and personal (except for a Knight of the Cross, of course). For a moment, I simply stood and watched, my jaw slowly dropping, as Buffy the vampire slayer fought a vampire a lot tougher than any she'd ever fought on her own Earth— and made it look kind of easy.

The thing about Black Court vampires is that they aren't like the demon-possessed human shells of the vampires of Buffy's world. "Her" vampires came to unlife with an instinctive knowledge of fighting, something Buffy said Giles thought was because they were warrior demons. Good point, that… but the Black Court vampires didn't have that instinctual martial arts knowledge, not unless they'd been martial artists before.

This one, very obviously, hadn't been a martial artist. Buffy, despite that super-strength shot to the gut that she'd taken, was dancing around the vampire, making him look really, really stupid. He'd swing, a big, wide roundhouse (admittedly a very fast big, wide roundhouse), and she'd not be there when it landed, would fire off a kick at the vampire. She didn't punch it at all, nor use the Scythe, and I found myself wondering why.

I was trying to decide whether or not to go help her when I heard running footsteps and a loud hissing, and remembered that I had a monster of my own to deal with. I looked down the way I'd flung my opponent, and saw him charging again— but this time, he was farther away, and I had time to do what I do best. I leveled my blasting rod and said, "Fuego!"

A bolt of fire about twice as thick as my thumb and blazing a bright yellow-white shot out and hit the oncoming vampire in the chest, right at the base of the throat, punched through the creature— and it exploded into a thousand bits of burning flesh.

"Dammit," I sighed, "I was aiming for his head."

I turned back towards Buffy— and saw why she'd been doing things the way she had, finally.

Undead or not, Black Court vampires, like most things, do get tired after a while; it just takes them a really long time, by comparison. I mean, sure, the fight had only been going on for about a minute, but that's actually a long time when every blow you throw is at full strength, when you completely commit all of your resources to every attack.

Buffy was wearing her opponent— I guess "him" still applies, at least by appearances— she was wearing him down, conserving her own energy, after a fashion, dodging and throwing kicks that probably weren't meant to do anything more than keep the vampire pissed off and fighting at full strength.

Now it was slowing down— and Buffy got serious. Her feet came at the vampire with all of her speed, weight and muscle behind them, she started adding the occasional punch to the mix, and she even smacked the vampire across the face with the handle of the Scythe a time or three, always getting him with the sharp flanges above the stake in the butt of the handle.

It was _gorgeous_ to see.

Finally, the vampire seemed to realize what she was doing, and it went for an all-out attack. It let Buffy knock it back, slam it into a park bench, and rolled over the bench. Then it grabbed the thing by the armrest at one end, swung it back over its head, and slammed it down at Buffy as she charged in to finish it off.

I took a long step forward, tried to shout her name, but my breath caught in my throat and—

—and I felt stupid as Buffy sidestepped the overhead swing easily, and, while the vampire was trying to wrench the bench out of the ground to swing again, did this funky little pirouette that started with the Scythe in close to her body, hands spread on the handle— and ended with the Scythe at the full extension of her arms, hands together on the haft, and the blade passing through the vampires neck with a little shrill of vibrating metal.

Buffy watched with a clinical sort of interest as the vampire's remains began to rot at an accelerated rate, then turned and started my way, rubbing absently at her stomach. I glanced around, saw the woman fleeing away from the direction I'd sent my vampire the first time, and making good time— she must have taken off her high heels.

I didn't see Javor Gavrilovic at all.

"Murph?" I called.

"I've got him," Karrin said from the shadowed depths of the porch.

"Go, you," Buffy said as she came up beside me. She looked at me and said, "You know, I'm more and more flattered that Xander says she was the closest thing in this universe to me, before we came here."

"Thank you," Murphy said, as Buffy and I skipped up the porch steps. "I may have to kiss Xander for a compliment like that."

"Who in the hell are you psychopaths!" Gavrilovic asked as Buffy and I approached him from behind. He was on his knees, his hands linked on top of his head, palms up. Something about his posture— knees tightly together, feet not so much— suggested that Karrin had nailed him in the groin, and he was still recovering from that. "You do realize that I will have you all arrested, don't you? The local police are all friendly with me, and—"

I stepped around in front of him and let him get a good look at me in the glow from his porch light— and Gavrilovic stopped talking immediately. A look of purest shock crossed his face, and he blurted something in what I assumed was Serbian.

"English only!" Karrin barked, and shoved the barrel of the mini-machinegun she carried into his field of vision. "Next time, you get a round in the foot to sharpen your memory!"

"I killed you!" Gavrilovic said, his eyes going wide. "It was a perfect shot, I saw the exit wound as you went off the boat, you _can't_ be alive!"

I just smiled— and he seemed to realize what he'd just said. His mouth closed with a snap, and he looked away from me, looked at Buffy. (Not like I could blame him on that one. She had on black leather pants and a deep red silk blouse, and she looked a _lot_ better than me.)

"Don't look to me for help," Buffy said, her voice calm, level, almost cold. "Not only is he my boss, he's my friend. I'm not real happy with you either. Not like I'm anywhere near as crazy-pissed as he is, but I'm not happy."

"None of us are happy," Murphy said, her voice detached, almost eerily so, like when she was at a really horrible crime scene, and had to get that way to stay sane. "But my friend raises a good point.

"You didn't try to kill her. You didn't try to kill me.

"You tried to kill _him_— and I'm extremely glad I'm not you."

"Whatever you want, you can't have it," Gavrilovic said, his teeth clenched together. "I wouldn't tell you anything if I could, and I can't. My services are hired anonymously, very deliberately. It is safer for both my clients and myself."

"Bullshit," I snarled. I leaned down close to his ear, careful to stay out of Murphy's line of fire, and hissed, "If that's the case, then why, exactly, are you using Black Court vampires for bodyguards, Gavrilovic?"

"I… it was a perk, a bonus." He swallowed hard. "The monsters were to be mine to command for one year after your excision. It was offered to me, and I took it."

" 'Excision,' " I said, tasting the word. "That's the word for 'murder,' these days?"

"It is the term for what I do," Gavrilovic said with a haughty toss of his head. "I excise the dead weight from humanity."

"Uh-huh," I said. I walked around behind Murphy and said, "Okay, well, if you don't know who hired you, you're no use to me except for playtime.

"Tie him up. We'll take him with us." I gave him the coldest smile I could manage, and considering that the asshole had murdered me, I'm pretty sure I was approaching absolute zero. "I'll bet you I can make him last at least two months."

"Oh, please," Buffy said, and rolled her eyes. "Thirty days. Six weeks tops."

"As easy as I took him down?" Karrin snorted. "Two weeks tops, boss."

"You don't frighten— shit!"

I'd known the protestation of fearlessness was coming— it's always coming at that point— and I was ready.

I called up my "little ball of sunshine" spell, created a tiny, brilliantly hot ball of pure fire over my left palm. Then I tilted my hand down, puffed a breath of air at the ball of fire, and sent it drifting towards Gavrilovic at the pace of an athletic snail. He tried to shy away, and felt the blade of Buffy's Scythe at the back of his neck. Murphy stepped slightly to one side, giving me center stage, as it were.

"You killed me," I said, my voice a thing of frosted steel. "You're right about that. It was a killing shot.

"I came back— but it wasn't easy, it wasn't fun, and I'm not happy about _having_ to come back. You hurt and scared my friends, the people I love, my family— and I'm not going to let you off the hook for that, Javor Gavrilovic— not without a price!

"Tell me who hired you and I'll kill you quickly— that's the best you can hope for.

"Otherwise… this ball, while it looks to be pretty large, is actually about the diameter of a big needle. The extra light is a side effect, that's all, from the oxygen in the air igniting.

"So imagine a needle of pure fire, Gavrilovic, imagine what I could do to you with that."

"Varma!" he cried, and he started to sob. "His name was Varma! I spoke to him only once, but he did insist on that once."

"Indian, huh?" I said, nodding a little. "Have an accent?"

"Yes, but it was European," Gavrilovic near-sobbed. "Like he was an immigrant. Voice kind of high-pitched. And he sounded sick, like— my grandfather, he had emphysema, could barely get the breath to speak, Varma sounded like that."

I froze. I almost forgot the ball of fire for a moment, as certain things came together in my head.

"Was there anything else?" I asked, my voice a growl, now. "Anything at all?"

"He said… he'd had others try before, one amateur, one professional, and that they'd failed. He said…." Gavrilovic gasped for breath and searched his memory desperately. "I wasn't happy about trying after others had tried and failed, that makes a target more wary, but… but she said, that the other attempts had been years ago."

"Did you ask for details?" Karrin asked, seeing that I was out of questions.

"I… yes!" Gavrilovic sobbed. "He said that the amateur attempt was four and a half years before mine, the professional attempt three and a half years before.

"Please, just kill me quickly!"

I closed my left hand, banished the ball of fire, and nodded at Buffy. She clouted Gavrilovic on the back of the head with the flat of the Scythe, and he fell facedown and unconscious on his porch.

"Son of a bitch!" I snarled. "I can't believe I missed— dammit! That bitch, that _fucking_ bitch!"

Murphy and Buffy both knew that I tended to save the f-bomb for the most serious of circumstances, and Murphy cautiously said, "Harry, do you know—"

"I know," I said, and shook my head. "Not now. Not here.

"Look, I can't do anything to this guy magically, and I can't just kill him— what do we do with him?"

"Maybe you should have thought about that before we came," Murphy said with a sigh. "If we let him go, he'll maybe come after you again, Harry, and obviously the cops aren't going to do anything, or they would have by now."

"I have an idea," Buffy said, though she sounded unsure of herself and maybe even upset. "This guy— sniper, right? Never kills any other way?"

"Right," Murphy confirmed. "What do you have in mind?"

"It's… ugly," Buffy said, her voice shaky, "but I'll do it, if you agree that it needs doing, both of you."

She told us, and Murphy and I both winced— but it might be the only way for us to be sure he wouldn't come after me again, or one of them. So, one more "I'm going to kill you" bluff, coming right up— this time with an "or" clause.

"Wake him up," I said to the air, and Karrin bent over, started poking and prodding him here and there.

After a moment, Gavrilovic responded sharply to one of Karrin's nerve-proddings, and rolled over slowly. On seeing us again, he went very, very pale.

"I'm going to offer you a way out of dealing with me," I said, my voice low and angry, though the anger was more at myself than him, at that point. "But there's a price tag. I can't risk you ever murdering another person for money, Gavrilovic, I _won't_ risk that."

"I won't, I swear, I'll retire, right now, toni—" the assassin babbled, his voice loud, almost a shout, his eyes filled with hope.

"Shut up!" Buffy snarled, and he did, immediately. "You're a murderer, why should we believe you?"

Gavrilovic's mouth moved silently for a long moment, before I let him off the hook.

"You have a choice, Javor Gavrilovic," I said, my voice heavy and angry. "You can die— or you can lose both index fin—"

Something hit the porch roof, hard, punched through, landed a couple of feet behind Buffy. It rose before any of us could do more than shift our focus to it, and it blurred as it darted forward— and slammed a fist down on Gavrilovic's head so hard that it popped like an over-ripe watermelon under that psycho-comedian guy's favorite sledgehammer.

All three of us were spattered with brains, blood and bone, and still trying to figure out what had happened when the figure that had done the killing started to glow, passing rapidly from red to orange, and not stopping there.

It was a stone figure of a gargoyle, one of several that had lined the roof of Gavrilovic's castle-mansion, and it made no move towards any of us— just kept glowing more and more brightly.

"Run!" I yelled, and we all three got off of the porch. Buffy started to go across the street, I started to follow, and Karin called "No, this way!" as she ran towards the nearer corner of Gavrilovic's house.

We got around the corner— and there came a huge explosion and an equally huge gout of fire from the front of the mansion.

"Shit," Buffy muttered, looking around the corner at the conflagration. "Thanks, Karrin— if we'd gone across the street, we might still have been killed."

"Yeah, thank you," I gasped. "Once again, you're a lifesaver."

"Yes, well, there will very likely be cops very soon, Harry," Karrin said. "Let's get out of here, okay?"

"And the lady does it again," I said, nodding. "Let's go, folks. Slow march, nothing unusual happening, right?"

We got off of Gavrilovic's block quickly, then slowed to a casual pace and walked along while trying to clean the worst of Gavrilovic's messy death off of ourselves with various handkerchiefs and other pieces of cloth. We got several blocks away before we even heard sirens, and I wondered if maybe someone hadn't told somebody in power to ignore calls from that address. It could be, given what I knew now.

"Harry," Murphy said as we turned towards our entry point to the Ways after walking several blocks in a different direction to get away from Gavrilovic's house, "it sounded like you figured something out about who hired him. Did you?"

"Yeah," I said, sighing. "I know who it was, Karrin— and I feel like an idiot for not seeing it before. But… not here. In fact, not until we're back at my place, behind my wards. I don't want to take any chances, Murph."

She looked at me closely, saw that I was serious, and nodded once. "Okay, Harry."

We made it to the place where we needed to enter the Nevernever without incident, and once we had entered the place, we all relaxed a lot. Of course, we tensed up again as the damned weapon-using-armor-wearing-scary-dinosaurs paced us through their part of the Nevernever, but we relaxed again when we left that part of the trip behind us.

Soon enough, we stepped out into the alley behind the Last Trumpet, and we all breathed a sigh of relief. As we walked towards the car, Buffy spoke for the first time since we'd left Belgrade.

"Sorry about forgetting what you told me about vampires here, Harry," she apologized. "I just— well, it's been a while since the briefing, and I hadn't seen one ever, so… I guess it didn't sink in."

"That's okay," I said calmly. Then I gave her a sidelong look and corrected myself. "Well, it's okay as long as you can tell me honestly that the knowledge is now firmly planted in your brain."

"It is," she said, and blushed a little. "That was a hell of a shot to the gut— I'm fine, get the worried look off your face— and that sort of thing tends to assist the memory, you know?"

"You're sure you're okay?" Karrin asked from the other side of her. "Not just being Tough Slayer Lady?"

"I'm sure," Buffy chuckled as we entered the parking garage where I'd left Captain Midnight. "Really, you guys. I'll have a big bruise there that will be a fading bruise by breakfast, and a not-bruise-anymore by supper time tomorrow. Slayers heal _fast_."

"So, how did that thing rate on your scale of nasty?" Murphy asked as we climbed into my car.

"Oh, very nasty," Buffy said. "Stronger than even one of the First Evil's über-vamps, tougher in some ways. Way faster.

"I'm just glad Harry says that vampires don't get much stronger than them."

"Except…?" I prompted as I pulled up to the gate and paid the attendant.

Buffy frowned in thought, then said, "Oh. Except for really old Black Court vamps, which are called… something chess-ish. And are scarier on all levels, and that _wasn't_ an old vampire?"

"They call elder Black Court vampires 'Rukhs,' Buffy," I told her. "Sort of chess-like, I'll give you that.

"But no— that wasn't an older Black Court vampire. I'd say is was a second generation one, though, not a third, so you've faced the middle rank, now."

"Yay," she sighed.

I've never heard that word said with so much lack-of-sincerity before or since.

I got us back to the brownstone, and we met in my apartment after we'd all had a chance to shower. (I gave Karrin the key to the apartment on the fifth floor that I'd outfitted as a guestroom.) (Not the one I was letting Molly use as a lab— putting a guest through that sort of risk is against the Unseelie Accords, the Geneva Conventions, and probably all the laws of gods and men that were ever made.)

(All right, yes— I'm exaggerating. But ever since an early potion attempt of Molly's blew up in her face [almost literally] and helped screw up what was supposed to be a day off and my first date with a lady I really liked, I've been a little wary of her and labs, okay?)

Once we'd all sat down at my kitchen table and all had drinks, I dry-scrubbed my face and tried to think of a way to tell the whole story about what I'd just figured out without Murphy blowing up on me. I couldn't think of one— so I just bit the bullet and put it out there, though I explained my reasoning as I went.

"Okay," I said, leaning forward and planting my elbows on the table. "Here's how I got to the conclusion I've reached— which I will give you, after I explain how I reached it."

"This had better not take long," Karrin warned, her eyes fierce and angry. "I want to know who killed my friend, Harry, so I can help you pay them back."

"Ditto," Buffy said.

"Okay," I said. I sighed and said, "Look, you know there are things I didn't tell you about my trip back from the dead. I hope you understand that mostly it's… stuff that I can't talk about yet. But some of it is… kind of personal. So I'd rather you didn't repeat this, okay?"

"All right, Harry," Karrin said, the anger leaving her eyes as she reached out and squeezed one of my hands even as Buffy squeezed the other.

"My lips are sealed," Buffy said solemnly.

"Okay, well… you both know, now that she's gone, about Lasciel." I sighed and shook my head. "Having a carbon copy of a fallen angel in your head for a few years is weird— but worse is that, in the end, the copy stopped being so carbon— and pulled a Pinocchio. She became an independent entity, partly because I gave her a name— names have power, and when I started calling her 'Lash,' it gave her… she started to become an entity unto herself, not a piece of Lasciel.

"Then came the night Carlos and I took on Madrigal Raith and Vitorrio Malvora over the killing of a lot of minorly magic-talented women. Murph, you know how bad things got at the end, when Vito went all spooky and possessed, but Buffy… I don't think you can know. We were all pinned by despair, fear, guilt— all the nastiest things a human being can feel, the power of Vito Malvora magnified by a freaking Outsider— Buffy, imagine something as much more powerful than the thing you fought to night as it was more powerful than— than Dawn. Then make it a purely emotional attack…."

"Damn," Buffy muttered softly. "That's… scary, yes."

"Okay, so…." I sighed again, shook my head, and said, "So to save me, or at least to give me the chance to save myself, Lash… she took the impact of that assault on herself, and she… she died of it."

My voice had gotten thick, and both ladies squeezed my hands. "The only thing that's left of her is… she gave me the skill with a guitar, made the connection between what I heard in my head and what came out through my fingers solid, real… and permanent."

"That's why that song you played is called 'Lash,' then," Buffy said, and gave me a smile. "Harry… that's pretty damned awesome of you."

"I guess," I said. I shrugged and said, "I think it's more just fair, though.

"Anyway… on my way back from being dead, I know that I mentioned running into one friendly being."

"Oh," Buffy said after a moment. She squeezed my hand again, held on this time. "It was Lash?"

"Yes," I said, my voice rough and ragged. "It was her. She… well, she saved me again. Details… I can't give you those, not right now— but this time, she saved me without losing her own existence. She gave me a place to rest, to recover, and helped me figure out the best way to get the rest of the way home.

"And she tried to help me figure out who'd killed me. She said, that, if she were going to do it— and she had planned murders, back when she was Lasciel, though she hated thinking about them— she'd have waited a while after the offense that required my death, so that I wouldn't connect them with her.

"She told me that it was pretty likely that whoever had me killed hadn't been in my face for a while, probably a long while, and that they'd rely on my having put suspicion on people with more recent reasons to want me dead, if I survived the attempt.

"I put that to Bob, and he came up with a list of seventy-eight freaking people who might well want me dead for offenses real or imagined, who'd have the resources to arrange a hit man, and the respect for my magical strength and talent to do it that way, rather than up close and personal.

"The name I've figured out as the real power behind this attempt was on that list.

"Tonight, everything finally clicked. Tonight, I got it.

"Murph, you remember right before that craziness at the horror convention, the case where I got Molly as an apprentice, where that car hit me and forced me off the road?"

"I remember," Murphy said, her eyes narrowing. "That'd be about, what… four and a half years ago, now?"

"Exactly," I said. "And it would fit Gavrilovic's claim that the first was an 'amateur' attempt. Then, almost a year later—"

"Some professional bomber wired a bomb to _my car_," Karrin growled. "Almost killed us both, would have if you hadn't accidentally hexed the bomb into going off early."

"Yeah," I said, nodding. "Then the Black Court bodyguards, and the name 'Varma.' " I freed my hand from Buffy's, took a notebook out of my pocket and wrote it down. Then I tore out the page and tore the individual letters off in little blocks. "Terry Pratchett made a joke in one of his Discworld books about how vampires (on the Disc, at least) always use their own name backwards when they need an alias— and I guess he was almost right. She was smart enough not to just reverse her name, but…."

I'd been shuffling my homemade Scrabble tiles around while I spoke, and now I leaned back to reveal them in their new order.

"She couldn't resist using the letters of her name, just not backwards," I said, and looked down at the name I'd made from V-A-R-M-A.

_Mavra_.

"There's the name of the vampire bitch that killed me," I said, my voice low and angry. "And I'm going to return the favor— in _spades!"_


	15. Chapter 15

"Harry," Murphy said slowly, "Mavra is dead. You killed her when we went after her in that homeless shelter."

I sighed and closed my eyes. "I thought so. But Kincaid didn't believe it back then. He said it was too easy— and he was right. It wasn't her."

"How do you know that?" Murphy protested. "She hasn't shown up since then."

"Yeah," I said, looking down at the table. "Yeah, she has, Murph."

Murphy froze, sat on my right and stared at me, her eyes growing suspicious. "When?"

"While you were in Hawaii," I said, not able to look at her. "With Kincaid."

"What happened?" she asked, her voice beginning to grow cold and distant. "What happened that you didn't tell me about it then, Harry?"

"She… blackmailed me." I shook my head and said, "I didn't want to worry you, it was over, so—"

"What," Karrin asked, her voice cutting through mine like it wasn't there, "_exactly_ did Mavra blackmail you _with,_ Harry?"

I didn't answer for a moment, and Karrin's voice, when she spoke again, was even more angry. "What did she have on you, Harry?"

"It wasn't about me," I said in a low voice. "Or— not much about me."

"What was it about?" Murphy asked, her voice now something worthy of a winter faerie.

"She had pictures," I said. I couldn't meet her gaze, even though I tried, and I realized that I had maybe screwed up worse than I'd thought by not telling her. "Pictures from that homeless shelter where we went after her."

"Pictures." Karrin's voice was hard. "They were of me, weren't they?"

I nodded, unable to speak.

"You let a monster blackmail you over something about me," Murphy said, sounding as though she were trying to make herself believe that I'd been that stupid, "and you _never told me?"_

"She had pictures of you killing that Renfield," I said, my voice weary and bleak. "The pictures didn't show that he was an _it_ by then, that it was just a psychotic killing machine, that you had no choice but to kill it or die and maybe let me die, too, maybe even Kincaid.

"They just showed you killing a man, a man who already had a spear through his chest, and they showed you doing it with a shotgun that had plainly been sawed off below the legal limit.

"She could have destroyed your career, Karrin, sent you to _jail_. And yes, there was one of both of us standing over that Renfield, so I'd have gone to jail, too.

"Worse… she had a lock of your hair. She could do anything she wanted to you, anytime, and even I couldn't stop it."

"You. Never. Told. Me."

Buffy looked horribly uncomfortable, and I couldn't blame her. She was Karrin's friend, too, and I know this had to be horribly awkward for her, but she didn't get up to leave, or try to mediate.

"Because I knew you'd be mad," I said, shaking my head. "She—"

"What did you do for her?" Karrin snapped. "What did you do to _protect_ me, Harry Dresden?"

"There's a book," I said, sighing. "The Word of Kemmler. It's… the last and supposedly greatest work by a scary-powerful necromancer. She wanted it. I found it. I gave it to her, but I—"

"You gave a Black Court vampire who also happens to be a _more powerful wizard than you,"_ Karrin said slowly, "a book by a 'scary-powerful necromancer'… to protect _me_."

"Dammit, Karrin, I didn't have a choice," I said, pinching the bridge of my nose. "You're my friend. I'd have done the same damned thing if it had been Michael. Or Butters. Or any of my friends! It had nothing to do with you being a woman, or helpless, because while you're very definitely the first, I know that you are a _long way_ from the second.

"But you weren't here. And I didn't want to spoil your first vacation in years, especially not when part of me _did_ want to spoil it for a bunch of petty, stupid reasons.

"I was afraid that if I told you, that if I let you come back and help me, let you defend yourself, help me save us both, that I'd be doing it for the wrong damned reasons, that I'd be doing it because I didn't want you to be in Hawaii _with Kincaid_— not because you deserved to know, to be a part of it!"

Karrin sat back, surprised by the vehemence in my voice— and she said, very quietly, "I see."

For a moment, no one spoke. Then Karrin said, "Go on with the story. But this isn't over with, Dresden."

"I found the Word of Kemmler, in the midst of all that other crap with Kemmler's Disciples looking for it, and performing the Darkhallow," I said with a sigh. "I got through the battle between the Wardens and the Disciples. I survived being made a Warden, and killing Corpsetaker while she was in Captain Luccio's body.

"I survived disrupting Cowl's attempt to perform the Darkhallow and become a virtual _god_.

"And I gave Mavra the Word of Kemmler— but I also gave her my promise that if she ever tried to get to me through another mortal, ever again… I'd _end_ her.

"She laughed, and said I couldn't. I pointed out to her that I had access to powers greater than hers, that I had been offered the job of Winter Knight twice by then, that I had a fallen angel in my head practically begging me to let her give me power like even Mavra couldn't counter.

"I pointed out to her that I'd read Kemmler's word, that, if it came down to it, I could perform the Darkhallow myself— and that if I did, she wouldn't last a second against me.

"And I pointed out that even if I didn't want to go that far, the Word of Kemmler had lots of information about how to use necromancy against vampires of the Black Court.

"Somewhere in there, I convinced her that I was serious, that I could and would come for her if she pissed me off— and I made her say it, say that she understood me.

"That's probably when she decided to have me killed at some point."

"It makes sense." Murphy sounded distant, still. "What now?"

"I'll have Molly do some asking around," I said. "She's been using my Paranet contacts, so she can talk to them without suspicion. And I'll ask Carlos to see if he can find out anything from Edinburgh— he goes by HQ every couple of weeks, I'll ask him to sneak a look at the Council's file on Mavra.

"When we know where she is, we can start planning an assault on her. This time, I'll be taking along anyone with any sort of power who's willing to come along with the three of us."

"You just saved your own life," Murphy said in an eerily emotionless voice, "by saying 'with the three of us,' Dresden.

"Nothing more for tonight, then?"

"No, there's nothing else, but—" I started.

"Then I'm going home." Murphy stood up abruptly, and started for the door out of my apartment. "Good night, Buffy."

"Hey, Karrin," I said, standing up and taking a couple of steps towards her. "Listen, I—"

"No. Not now. Right now, I need to not talk to you, Dresden. Just shut up. I'll be in for work tomorrow."

She left, and I stood there for a moment, wondering if I'd just cost myself one of my best friends.

"She'll forgive you, Harry," Buffy said. She stood up and came over to me, squeezed my arm. "Maybe not soon, but… maybe so. I think soon, even, because you did one really smart thing. Amazingly smart, for a guy."

"Gee, thanks," I said with a sigh. "What was it, just so I know what most guys would have been too stupid to say?"

"Uh, sorry, I didn't mean it to sound that… mean, I guess," Buffy said. She moved around in front of me, waited until I looked down at her to continue. "The smart thing was admitting that you were afraid you'd be calling her back for the wrong reasons. That you were jealous."

"Ah," I said. I sighed, and I nodded. "Okay. I was, back then. Jealous, I mean."

"Back then?" Buffy asked, her head cocked a little to one side. "I sort of thought you still had a thing for her. I mean, you guys tease each other like people do when they're interested in each other."

"Oh, no," I said. I blushed. "We almost did… something. Not so much get together as just… have sex. Once."

"Right before you died?" Buffy asked. When I nodded, she said, "Thought so. You blushed-and-stammered some when you told us about how you and Karrin were going to go out, get hammered, and 'see what happened.' " She grinned up at me impishly and said, "It was cute.

"But that's why I thought you guys might be getting together. Well, that and the bickering. Like I said, you bicker like people who are interested in each other and not sure how to talk about it."

"Or," I said, moving to the fridge and grabbing another Coke, "like brother and sister, maybe?"

Buffy opened her mouth, closed it, and looked thoughtful. Then she nodded a little and said, "Yeah. Like that, too. Sorry."

She nodded as I held up a diet Coke for her, and I brought it to her and sat back down. She sat around the corner of the table from me and said, "Anyway, Harry— she'll forgive you. Just… don't push for it. Let her have the time she needs to get over being mad.

"And when she rips you a new one? Don't argue with her, because you sort of deserve it, and it wouldn't help any even if you didn't."

"Okay," I said, and lifted my Coke to her. "Thanks, Buffy."

"You're welcome," she said, and clinked her can against mine before taking a drink. "So— do you need to start looking for this Mavra bitch now, or does it wait until tomorrow?"

"I should start now," I sighed. "I want this over with, Buffy. I want to let the rest of the magical world know I'm back."

"Okay," she said, and nodded. "Can I stick around and listen?"

"Sure thing," I said.

So Buffy sat and listened while I called Molly and Carlos, told them what I'd learned, listened to each one growl threats, and took them up on their immediate offers to help. I told them what they could do, and Molly went straight to it, while Carlos decided to wait for morning to take the trip to Edinburgh. Once that was done, I sighed and said, "Well— it's almost ten. I think I'll put in a movie— you want to hang?"

"Depends on the movie," she said. "If there's a horror flick in the offing, I'll go to bed early."

"Good god, no," I said, shuddering theatrically as I led her to the living room. "But I got this in the mail today." I picked up the DVD of How to Train Your Dragon. "It's supposed to be pretty awesome."

Buffy laughed, nodded, and said, "Do you have popcorn, or should I go down to my place and get some?"

I had popcorn. We sat and watched the movie (which was pretty damned incredible), ate popcorn and drank soda. When the movie ended, it was eleven-thirty, and Buffy was yawning almost as much as me. She thanked me, hugged me firmly-but-carefully to avoid aggravating my still-tender side, and went off to her own apartment and to bed.

I went to bed, to sleep, and to fight off a bunch of nightmares that I mercifully didn't remember after waking— I knew that I'd had nightmares, bad ones, but I couldn't recall any of the content. That was okay with me.

Murphy came in at eight-thirty, went to her office without speaking to me, and shut the door. I took Buffy's advice, and left her alone.

Karrin and Buffy met with a possible client about nine, took a job, and Buffy went off to work on it; simple surveillance, a parent wanting to know where his college-age daughter was staying, since he found out accidentally that she'd left her dorm room.

I stayed in my office, worked on my kinetic energy ring— nothing magical going on at that stage, I was just braiding hair-thin wire for the bands that actually contained the force. At lunch time, Buffy came back in briefly to get some equipment— turned out she needed to do her surveillance from a distance to keep the college boys from drawing attention to her by constantly hitting on her, which gave me and Murphy both a laugh.

I ordered lunch from a nearby Italian place, didn't ask Karrin to join me, or if I could order for her— but when the kid came to deliver, he had two orders, one for me and one for her.

I'd just opened my beef tortellini with meat sauce and meatballs (me carnivore!) when my office door opened and Murphy came in. She sat down across my desk with her own food (chicken parmesan) and simply started eating. I didn't say anything, just gave my food my full attention and tried not to sneak glances at Karrin, because I figured she'd catch me looking and get pissed again.

I finished after she did, and after I tossed my disposable dishes in the trash, Murphy got up, left my office, and locked the front door. Then she came back to my office, sat down and gave me a glare that had me wishing that I'd committed a crime recently— just so I could confess and get her to stop _looking_ at me like that.

"If you ever," Murphy said after most of two minutes of staring at me without blinking even once, "and I mean ever, Dresden!— if you ever, under any circumstances let someone or something push you into doing something that you know is both dangerous and wrong to prevent harm of _any sort_ from coming to me, ever again… we're done. Over. I'll go work for Vince Graver, and I will never, _ever_ speak to you again. Are we clear?"

I decided to keep things as minimal as possible to reduce the chances of saying something stupid. "Yes, Murph."

"I understand that you would have done it for Michael, or Butters, or Will and the Alphas," Murphy said, her blazing eyes still fixed on my eyebrows (to prevent a Soulgaze, which, after what Xander had pointed out to me, seemed like a great idea to me). "I even understand that you were afraid of calling me back to help for the wrong reasons, and I appreciate your honesty in admitting that.

"But I don't appreciate you risking lives over my wellbeing. Now that I know about that, Harry… anything that monstrous bitch does to hurt someone that looks to me like necromancy? It's going to weigh on my conscience. Because you gave her that book, that power, to protect me.

"I'd rather have gone to jail and lost everything than have even _one_. _Innocent. Person. Harmed._ Because of me, however indirectly. You know me well enough that you know that."

She stopped talking, which I took as a sign that she expected an answer. "I do."

"I believe you when you say it wasn't about me being helpless." She sighed, shook her head, and said, "But I can't forget this easily. It's going to take some time. I'd appreciate it if you kept conversations to work related for… a little while. I'll let you know when I'm ready to… to let this go enough to _act_ like I'm your friend, instead of just _being_ your friend."

"All right." I stood up and offered her my hand. She understood that I was agreeing to her terms and seeking to seal that, not asking for a friendly handshake, and she shook, two strong pumps. "I expect to hear from Carlos this afternoon, and Molly, if she gets anything."

"Let me know what they find," Karin said, and she turned and walked out of my office, unlocked the front door, and went to her own office.

I sat back down and tried not to look as relieved as I felt. Buffy had been right— and Karrin was right to be pissed at me. But I knew, down deep, that she'd forgive me, after that talk.

I went back to work on braiding wire for my ring, and didn't notice much of anything else until Molly called at two to say that she'd gotten nothing that even might be Black Court activity from the Paranet. I told her not to worry, I'd expected that the chances there were small, but worth looking into, and went back to my ring.

Carlos Ramirez dropped into the chair across from me about an hour and a half later.

"Hey, Carlos," I said, and got up to shake his hand. "You want a Coke?"

"Got any beer?" he asked in reply.

I got him an Anchor Steam out of my cooler and passed it to him. He raised it, drank, and let out a sigh.

"Okay, we gotta put this Black Court bitch down, Harry," Carlos said, looking at the beer. "This stuff's okay, but you gotta let the community know you're back, just so you can go to McAnally's and buy some of his stuff. This is good— but Mac's brew kind of spoils a guy for ordinary beer, you know?"

"I hear you," I said. I leaned over the desk and asked, "So, did you get anything?"

"A little bit, but not much," Carlos admitted. He pulled a map out of his hip pocket, spread it across my desk so that we could both read it by turning our heads sideways, and indicated a circle on the map (which I didn't recognize at all). "This is Romania. The only thing I got that even might be her is that there have been a rash of human disappearances and animal mutilations in this area of the country since— get this— late October. Like right after you disappeared, _hermano_."

"That sounds significant, doesn't it? I asked, and matched his wolfish smile. "Go on."

"Mostly the problems have been confined to this area," he said, tapping the circle, which lay in the northeast quadrant of Romania. "Problem is, that's a circle about twenty-two miles across, and most of it falls in the Carpathian Mountains. That's a lot of area to cover."

"Crap," I said. I never could remember the formula for finding the area of a circle, so I asked, "How many square miles is that?"

"About three hundred and eighty," Carlos sighed. "Still, it's a start. If we can get over there your way, we can probably do some serious searching, but we'll want to be doing it at some strange times— no offense, Harry, I love you like a brother, but I ain't going looking around for Mavra after dark, not even for you."

"That's just common sense, 'Los," I agreed. "So… hey, wait a minute. Look, I don't suppose you could get the locations of the disappearances and mutilations, copy them on here, could you?"

"Well, sure, but it'd have to be tomorrow," Carlos said. "I got a meeting with the wizards in my area in a couple hours— we've had some issues with a bunch of Fomor trying to pull shit in coastal cities over there."

"That's fine," I said, nodding at him. "You get those sites, and I'll bet you dollars to doughnuts that Buffy or Dawn— hell, or Xander, he was Watcher to a boatload of slayers for years— can help us figure out where to start looking."

"Hey, yeah!" Carlos said, his eyes lighting up. "Damn, that's a good idea, Harry."

"Comes from working with Buffy and Murphy," I told him. "And the way Dawn keeps helping when I ask, and even volunteering. I'm getting spoiled, Carlos— I'm forgetting how to work alone."

"I can see that," he said, and looked across the room at Karrin's closed office door. "Murphy busy? I figured she'd come say hi."

"She, uh," I stammered— then I sighed and told the truth. "She's kind of pissed at me, Carlos. I'm not pushing it. You can go say hi, but… promise me you won't try to talk to her about me, okay?"

"Ouch," Carlos winced. "That bad, huh? What the hell did you do?"

I sat and thought for a moment, then I said, "Carlos… I didn't tell you exactly how I pissed of Mavra enough for her to want to kill me."

"No, I just figured it was your usual 'my mouth runs off without consulting my brain so often that it's pathetic,' thing." He looked at me and said softly. "There's more to it than that, huh?"

"Yyyyyyyeah." I dry scrubbed my face and said, "Look… Carlos, if I tell you about this, you're either going to have to arrest me on the spot, or never, ever talk about it to anyone— and for the moment, at least, that needs to include Molly." He started to cloud up, and I held up a placating hand before he could start defending her integrity. "Not because I don't trust her, Carlos, but because she's young— and young people aren't as good as keeping secrets as us older wardens. Also, there are probably still people on the Council who don't trust her, might be watching her somehow."

"Ah." Carlos looked at me with penetrating eyes, and said, "That bad?"

"I meant it when I said you'd have to arrest me or never talk about it."

"Shit, Harry," Carlos said, shaking his head slowly. "You know I won't arrest you. I know you might break rules, but I know you'd have reasons for it.

"Talk to me."

So I did. I told him about the Word of Kemmler, and Mavra's blackmail, and my threats to her when I gave her the book, and how I'd seen in her eyes that she knew I meant what I said.

When I finished, Carlos stared at me for a long moment, and I stared back—

—and we both forgot that we'd never actually done a Soulgaze before.

Carlos… what I saw held no surprises for me. He was honest, brave, cocky— even in his own head— and one of the most rock-solid, dependable friends a guy could have.

Apparently, what he saw— well, heard, he'd told me that for him, a Soulgaze expressed itself as music— did surprise him, because when it broke, his eyes were wide, and he said, "Madre de Dios, Harry! That was— Madre de Dios!"

"I get that a lot," I sighed.

Carlos shook his head once, then his face settled into his familiar, quietly cocky smile, and he said, "Okay, I'm not arresting you. I get why you did what you did— I'd have done the same, 'mano.

"But I also think you're damned lucky that Karrin didn't decide to kick your ass over that."

"I know," I said, and dry-scrubbed my face with one hand. "I know, I screwed up— and I'm just glad she said she'd be able to get over it."

"You better be," Carlos said, and he stood. "Hey, I'm gonna get moving. It's an hour's walk to LA through the Ways from here. Which is freaky, because it's only twenty minutes or so from Edinburgh to LA."

"If the faerie Ways were logical—" I started to quote an old wizards' maxim.

"—They wouldn't be the _faerie_ Ways," Carlos finished with me. "Yeah. I know.

"I'll be back tomorrow, about this time, okay, Harry?"

"Good deal. Thanks, man."

Carlos took his leave, did poke his head into her office to say "hi" to Murphy before he went. He must have told her what we'd planned, because she didn't come over to ask about it.

Buffy came in at almost five-thirty, grinning. She stuck her head in and said, "All wrapped, boss. Gonna write it up and fax it to the client— he asked for the fax if I got the goods today, and said to fax the bill to him, too."

"Boyfriend?" I asked.

"Boyfriend and his roommate and the roommate's girlfriend," Buffy confirmed. "I think she's keeping up her grades, though— I got into one lecture in a hall, and she was taking notes, even answered a question or two. Looks like she just didn't want to tell her dad because of the living with a guy thing, not because she's flunking out or anything."

"Excellent," I agreed. "Soon as you've finished, come back in here and I'll tell you what Carlos found and what we're going to do about it."

Buffy nodded and bounced off to her office. She caught Karrin coming out of hers to go home, spoke with her for a moment, then went into her own office. Karrin came and leaned in my doorway for a moment.

"Carlos said you want to try using a computer to help us narrow down the search area for Mavra," she said, her voice businesslike. "That's a good idea— we may yet get you into the twenty-first century before long."

"I'm open to the idea," I said lightly. "After all, computer stuff could actually help the Council, like with disseminating ritual stuff so that too many people try it, and it stops working. Heck, a computerized information dump would be great, maybe run by a real minor talent or—"

White light went off behind my eyes, and suddenly, a huge, mad grin spread across my face as I was smacked with maybe the best idea I'd ever had.

"Stars and _stones!"_ I breathed. "Oh, if this works…."

"If what works?" Murphy asked, her eyebrows raised. She'd come a step into my office, as though she'd been worried about me, and I figured I must have been unresponsive while my idea came together.

"Sit down for a minute, Murphy, and I'll show you," I said, my grin expanding enough to actually start hurting. "I mean, this is all because of you, Buffy and Dawn anyway, so…."

Murphy sat and watched me skeptically as I grabbed a pencil and a pad of paper from a desk drawer and started writing. I wrote for maybe a minute, then turned the pad around and showed it to Murphy as I crossed my fingers and waited for the phone to ring.

Murphy read my note and looked up at me with a question in her eyes. I held up a hand for her to wait, and she read the note I'd written again.

I'd written a note to the Archive, a girl of… she must be about fifteen now, who was a mystical repository of virtually every bit of information that had ever been written down by any being anywhere on Earth. (Information on a computer had to be printed out before she got it, but if it was printed, she did get it.) Along with the information came a magical compulsion to remain neutral in disputes between supernatural parties. It was a hellish burden that passed magically from mother to daughter, had been for millennia— and the current Archive, whom I'd nicknamed "Ivy" because I couldn't think of her as just "the Archive" (I'd first met her when she was about six, and let me tell you, that much knowledge and the air of authority and gravity that comes with it is spooky as hell in a six year-old), had been the Archive since birth, as her mother had committed suicide.

About three years before, the Order of the Blackened Denarius— also known as Nicky and the Nickelheads— had kidnapped Ivy, tried to force her to take up one of the blackened silver coins that held a fallen angel in it, tried to get all of the power-in-the-form-of-knowledge in that little girl on their side. I'd rescued her, with the help of Michael Carpenter and his Fellow Knight of the Cross, Sanya. (Okay, and some help from a couple of John Marcone's people, but they'd only come along because their boss had been kidnapped, too, as the bait to get them Ivy.) That had been when Michael had been injured and forced to retire as a Knight.

We'd rescued the girl— but not before the Nickelheads had put her through some serious psychological and comparatively mild physical torture (mostly exposure— they'd left her naked and kept her outdoors in an early winter). Ivy had clung to me for a while after, and… and she was a friend, and she might be able to pay back the Nickelheads. So I'd written her the note now in front of Murphy, which read:

_Ivy—_

_I'm sure you know I'm alive, and pretty sure that you know I don't want a lot of people knowing that— thanks for keeping mum._

_Listen, I know you probably don't like to think about this, but did the Order of the Blackened Denarius ever make any attempt at reparations for what they did to you? Reparations according to the Unseelie Accords, I mean?_

_And if they didn't, would that failure let you overcome the neutrality binding on you and take some action that wouldn't be terribly direct?_

_Please, figure it out if you can, and call me at my office. I'm sure __you__ know the number._

_Harry Dresden_

Because I'd written it, she knew it— I'd done this before. Now it was just a matter of giving her a couple of minutes to figure out if she could get around the binding and waiting for her call.

The phone rang, and I snatched it up.

"Harry Dresden," I said— and when the person on the other end spoke, I grinned like a fool.

"Hello, Mr. Dresden," Ivy said, her voice calm, but a little shy. "I really am glad to know that you're all right."

"Thanks, Ivy," I said. "Hey, when it's not an official function, why don't you call me Harry?"

"Thank you, Harry," Ivy said gravely. Then she continued, and she sounded… intrigued. "I received no offer of reparations from Order of the Blackened Denarius, Harry, and I believe that I could take some form of non-direct action against them in repayment— but I can't know for sure until I hear your suggestion."

"That's fair," I said. I couldn't stop grinning, and Murphy was beginning to look worried about me. "Listen, Nicodemus bragged to me once that he occasionally destroys the records of the Denarians that are kept by the Catholic Church— so every so often, they have to start all over.

"But that stuff was _written down,_ Ivy, so you know it. My question is, can you write it all down— then hand it off to someone who can use a computer safely, have them put it into a computer file… and mail it to a Catholic Priest I know, and maybe to one of my associates here? I'm sure that, between us, we can spread the information so far and wide that Nicodemus couldn't possibly destroy it again— which would give the Church and the Knights a new and different sort of edge over Nicky and the Nickelheads."

For a long moment, Ivy didn't say anything, and I let her think about that.

"I believe… I believe that I can do that," Ivy said, her voice slow but full of something that sounded a lot like delight. "Yes. Yes, I can do that!

"Harry, you're brilliant. Thank you!"

"Nah, I'm not brilliant," I chuckled. "I just really want to see those assholes get beaten down, that's all.

"Besides, I'd never have thought of it if not for something Karrin Murphy said, and her and Buffy being around to get me used to the idea of computers and stuff by osmosis."

"Thank her for me," Ivy said immediately. "Which priest would you like me to send this too, once it's done? And which of your associates?"

"Send it to Father Anthony Forthill," I said around a laugh of pure satisfaction. "I can get you his—"

"He has written his email down more than once, Harry," Ivy said gently. "As have Ms. Murphy and Ms. Sinclair."

"All right, sorry," I said. "Listen, send it to both of them, please?"

"Gladly," Ivy said. She sounded energized, eager and ready to go. "Please tell Ms. Murphy that Kincaid says 'hello,' Harry. And thank you for this opportunity."

"You're welcome, Ivy, and thanks for doing it," I said. I hesitated a second, then said, "I'm sure Karrin will return the greeting to Kincaid—" Murphy rolled her eyes a little and nodded. "—so pass that along, please."

"I shall. Goodbye, Harry, and thank you again."

I said goodbye and hung up, looked at Murphy and said, "Kincaid says 'hello.' And Ivy says thank you for giving me the idea."

"So I gathered," Murphy said, and she stood. "That really was brilliant, Harry. Good thinking."

"Thanks. Night, Murph."

"See you tomorrow," she said, and went out of the office, presumably to go home.

Buffy came in a couple of minutes after Murphy left, found me sitting at my desk and chortling as I thought of the problems that I'd just managed to give Nicodemus and the other members of the Order of the Blackened Denarius.

"Sitting alone and laughing is one of those things that can make people start sending you copies of the Evil Overlord List, Harry," Buffy said as she dropped into the chair across from me. "You're not cracking up, are you?"

"No, I'm just having a good revenge day," I said, and I told her about the idea I'd had and that Ivy was probably right now working on implementing.

"Okay, that's worth the laughter," Buffy said, laughing with me for a moment. "No Evil Overlord worries here.

"You gonna tell Michael?"

"Yeah," I said, grinning. "In fact, I think I'll go over there tonight, if him and Charity are okay with it." I reached for the phone and said, "You want to come?" before I dialed.

"Sure," Buffy said, nodding. "I love them and their kids. And Maggie, she's a treat."

"Flatterer," I said, and called the Carpenters.

Michael was fine with Buffy and I coming over, suggested we bring Xander, Dawn and Murphy as well. I said that I'd ask everyone but Murphy, and told him (before he could ask) that I'd done something to piss her off and she needed some time to forgive me the rest of the way.

"All right, Harry," Michael said. He hesitated for a moment, then said, "If there's anything I can do to help…."

"I know," I said, smiling. "But this is… she just needs a little time, she says. I'd like to give it to her, so this… strain between us goes away on her terms."

"You did something foolish again, didn't you?" Michael sighed.

"A while back, yes," I mumbled. "But it came out last night, and… she's right to mad, Michael so please, don't call her. Let her do this her way."

"All right Harry. What time should we look for you?"

"Seven-thirty or so," I said, and I found myself grinning and perking up. "I have some news that I think you're going to love, man."

"I look forward to hearing it," Michael chuckled. "See you soon, Harry."


	16. Chapter 16

_Interlude:_

It took her days to work up the nerve, but in the end, she went. Not on Sunday, she couldn't do Sunday, not yet. But she wanted to feel… connected again. She didn't know if it was possible, but she was compelled to try.

She decided later that it might have been wiser to start with a smaller church, a less… _imposing_ church, but this was one she'd been in before, sort of, and she remembered loving it, even as it left her sad, confused and a little frightened.

Saint Mary of the Angels was a huge place, and beautiful. She could feel… a thousand things she hadn't allowed herself to feel in a great many years, as she stood at the back of the chapel and simply stared down the aisle between the pews, drank in the architecture, the paintings, the stained glass windows….

She felt no discomfort at all, and the gratitude for that simple absence filled her to overflowing. She found her vision blurring, doubling, tripling— and she moved sideways to sit in a pew in the back row and wipe her eyes clear of the tears that so suddenly filled them.

"Miss? Are you all right?" asked a quiet, kindly voice from the aisle.

She looked sideways, saw a stocky figure in black, a splash of white at the throat, and said, "I'm fine, Father, thank you. It's just… it's gorgeous, and it… overwhelmed me a little. Or… maybe a lot."

"All right, then," the priest said, smiling at her, his blue eyes gleaming. "In that case, I shall leave you to recover yourself— if that's what you'd like?"

"Yes, please," she breathed. Her sheer joy at coming here, at feeling _welcome_ here, hadn't subsided, but she was getting a handle on it, now. "I'll be all right, thank you again."

"If you decide that you'd like to talk, just ask anyone who looks like they work here for Father Forthill." He nodded to her again, and said, "I hope to see you at Mass, sometime."

"I… hope that you do as well," she replied, and found herself startled to find that it was true, not so much for the idea of celebrating Mass, but just for the idea of being welcome at such a thing. "But I am not actually sure that you will. I know that God exists, that he is real, but I am not at all certain about the rituals of this— or any, really— faith."

"I can accept that," Father Forthill said, nodding at her. "It is not the ritual that matters, if your faith is true. Ritual isn't for God—"

"It is for man," she said, and beamed at him. "I like that you can admit that, Father."

"And I like that a young woman knows it," he said, his smile broadening. "Such wisdom in one your age is pleasing."

"I am… older than I look, Father," she said, and actually blushed a little.

"Aren't we all?" the priest asked. He smiled at her nodded reply, and went towards the front of the church.

She sat there for another fifteen minutes, then left quietly and walked back to her hotel, smiling the whole way.

_Harry:_

I ended up stopping on the way upstairs and collecting Xander and Dawn both, and I invited all three Scoobies to join me for supper, which I ordered from a pizza place that was nearby, fast, and made a great pizza.

As we went into my place, I put my staff in the antique, heavy, clay fake elephant's foot umbrella stand that held my staff when I was at home, as well as my fighting-practice staff, two Swords of the Cross (Michael's and Shiro's, each given to me by its former wielder with the instruction to pass it along when I found the right person to wield it, and assurances that I would know), an antique sword cane that I intended to turn into a focus item for some of my magic when I had the time, and— oh, yeah!— a couple of umbrellas. Being made of clay, it held things much more steadily than the gift popcorn tin I'd used in my old apartment, which used to fall over if Mister bumped into it. Or Mouse looked at it really hard.

We sat, we ate, we talked, and I didn't tell Xander and Dawn what I'd figured out about my killer or about how to mess with the Nickelheads yet, figuring I'd just tell the tale once more.

We all went to the Carpenters' together— Xander didn't have a car yet, and Dawn had declared an intention not to bother with one, since she got along fine on "public transportation and cadging rides from Harry." Mouse came along, too, since he loved playing with the kids.

For the first hour, things stayed light; we didn't talk about serious stuff because we were busy playing with the kids; somehow, Buffy, Xander, Dawn and I all got conned into playing hide and seek with Amanda, Hope, little Harry and my Maggie. Mouse played too, but was disqualified from being 'it'; his sense of smell gave him an unfair advantage on that front. He got a real kick out of the hiding and running away parts, though, and the kids loved having him in the game.

At eight-thirty, the game was called so that the little ones could start getting ready for bed. Maggie hugged me fiercely, then surprised and pleased the Scoobies by insisting on hugging them, as well, then went off to get ready for bed.

Finally, it was just us adults in the Carpenters' rec room, and Michael said, "All right, Harry. You said you had some news I'd like hearing. What is it, please?"

"It comes in two stages, Michael," I said, settling back on the couch. Buffy sat beside me, Dawn on her other side, and Xander had taken a chair to one side, facing both the couch and the loveseat that Michael and Charity were sharing. "First… I found out who it was that ordered me killed."

"Thank heavens," Michael said, a huge sigh escaping him. "Can you do something about it, Harry, or is it someone powerful enough that you'll have to let go of it for now?"

"She's powerful," I said, my voice flat and hard, "but I'm going after her anyway. I'm not going alone— Carlos and Molly are both coming, as are Buffy and Murphy—"

"Hey!" Xander yelped. "No, wrong answer! You meant 'as are Buffy, Murphy and—" He looked sideways, saw Dawn's mouth open to protest as well, and shifted gears in mid-sentence. " 'As are Buffy, Murphy, Dawn and Xander,' that's what you meant."

I stared at him for a moment, blinking in surprise. There'd been no hint from him that he was anything other than content being a framer and electrician for Michael.

"Absolutely," Dawn said, and when Buffy opened her mouth, Dawn put her hand over it. "Don't bother, Buffy. I know it by heart. 'It's too dangerous, you aren't prepared for this sort of fight, you can't come.'

"Bull. I pulled my weight against the First's Bringers at the Battle of Sunnydale, I fought a dozen battles in the war against Twilight, and that's _after_ I got rid of the curse that had me shifting shape every month.

"And in the Battle of Magic's End, Xander and I covered your back. Sure, the other slayers helped while they had their powers, but in the end? Xander and I, we made sure nothing got to you. All the way through the Nevernever, we three fought together, and we survived.

"We're going.

"Harry, don't _you_ argue, either. You're our friend, you've helped us make lives here, you've gone the distance for us— and we're going the distance for you. And so help me, if you say one word about time sheets in connection with this, I will personally kick your butt so hard that _Ebenezar_ won't be able to sit down for a week!"

I swallowed, looked at Buffy— her mouth still covered by Dawn's hand— and saw her nod reluctantly.

"Okay, then," I said, fighting a smile of purest delight… and losing. "Let me start over.

"Carlos and Molly are both coming, as are Murphy and the Scooby Gang. I'm going to ask Andi and Marci if they want to come— no new parents allowed, so Will and Georgia sit this one out.

"And I'm going to ask Ebenezar, simply because of what we're up against. I want all the power I can get to go with me when we go after Mavra."

"Merciful God," Michael said softly. "Mavra? The Black Court vampire we met at that Red Court party years ago?" I nodded, and he shook his head. "What on Earth did you do that she wanted you dead, Harry?"

I told them everything, including my failure to ever tell Murphy about this before the night before, and I admitted that this was the reason she was angry at me. When I admitted that she was right to be angry, Charity snorted and said, "Harry, you're lucky she didn't simply beat some sense into your head when you told her the truth."

"I know," I said, holding up my hands in surrender. "I know, Charity. I do. And I'm letting her get over this her way, in her own time."

"All right then," Charity said. "Go on, please."

I finished that story with Carlos's findings about the probable presence of a Black Court vampire in Romania, and how the activity there had started up right after my death. I told them that Carlos was getting more information, so that Dawn and Xander could maybe figure out a smaller search area for us, and got big grins and expansive nods from both of them.

"Then Karrin said something about how I might get into this century if things went on like this, and I agreed, and said that I thought it would be handy for wizards to have a computerized bunch of information, how it would help the White Council do stuff like put nasty rituals out there and render them useless through too many people trying to use the info— and that's when it hit me…."

I told Michael and Charity about my call to Ivy, how she was, in all likelihood, writing out everything that had ever been written down about the Order of the Blackened Denarius at that moment— and preparing it to be transcribed into a computer file and sent to Buffy, Murphy, and Father Forthill, who was a part of the network of Catholic Priests that served to aid the Knights of the Cross— whose primary duty in the world was to try to redeem the members of the Denarians, and to oppose them when redemption wasn't possible.

When I finished, Michael simply stared at me for a long, long moment, his eyes wide and his mouth ever-so-slowly curving into a huge, delighted grin. Suddenly, he burst into full-throated, hearty laughter, stood up, offered me a hand and pulled me to my feet.

He shook the hand he'd pulled me up by and said, "Harry Dresden, you may have just dealt more harm to the Order of the Blackened Denarius than a dozen Knights of the Cross, and you have certainly made it more likely that future Knights will go into battle better prepared for their enemies— and a better prepared Knight is a Knight who is much more likely to survive, to overcome!

"Thank you, Harry— and if you ever again question Shiro's decision or mine about leaving our swords in your care, I will personally ask Charity to lecture you on your foolishness!"

With that, Michael gave me one of his enthusiastic, back-thumping bear hugs.

"Hey!" I protested, smiling as Charity, laughing and smiling, got up to come hug me herself. "Now that's just not fair."

"No, but he's right," Charity said as she hugged me herself. "That was pure genius, Harry Dresden, and I couldn't agree more— Shiro and Michael passed their blades to the right man. Anyone who can figure out such a wonderful way to deal those Denarian monsters a blow like this can certainly choose wisely about who should bear the blades."

"Thanks," I said. "So… you know I'll make Molly be careful when we go after Mavra, right?"

"I know," Charity and Michael said in stereo as they sat back down. Michael smiled and said, "She said you were impressed by her use of magic in the apprehension of a warlock here in town. Were you, really?"

"He— heck, yes," I said. I shook my head in admiration all over again. "Molly's approach to combat magic is so radically different from mine that I sometimes wonder if I really was her mentor at all— and it's not just different from mine, Carlos hasn't seen a lot of what she does before himself. In fact, it seems that Captain Luccio wants Molly to help train the next batch of Wardens that go through Camp Kaboom, just because of her 'innovative use of magics not normally thought of as offensive to send the enemy screaming for its mother.' Which, coming from the Captain? Very high praise."

We talked about Molly, we talked about Maggie, we talked about the kids in general, then wandered into the realms of the upcoming Easter holiday. At a little before ten, the Scoobies and I took our leave, and Michael and Charity, presumably, went to bed.

I ended up going to bed early myself, and I think the others did, too.

The next morning, I had just finished my breakfast and was considering a second mug of coffee when the buzzer sounded, telling me that someone was at my apartment door. I kept use of the speaker to a minimum, to save Xander having to replace it, but this early, I used it, pressed the button and said a cautious, "Yeah?"

"Harry, is that you?" said a voice I knew pretty well. "It's me— Rawlins."

Henry Rawlins was an excellent cop, a member of Special Investigations like Murphy had been. He'd been her partner for her last three years or so there, and I liked him as well as respected him. "Hey, man— come on up. Sixth floor." I pressed and held the buzzer that'd let him in, then went to the door into the short hallway that held both elevator and stair entry to wait for him.

Rawlins got off of the elevator a minute later, and he didn't seem to have changed much. Still a big man, still Black, still muscular, though with a bit of a gut. There was a little more gray in his hair than there had been when I saw him last, and his suit looked a little more lived in, but he was mostly unchanged.

"Hey, Rawlins," I said, waving him towards me. "Get you a cup of coffee?"

"I don't think so, Dresden," Rawlins said with a heavy sigh. "I'm here on business, I'm afraid."

"Business?" I said, and cocked my head.

"We got a murder that… looks weird, Harry," Rawlins sighed, scrubbing his face. "Your kind of weird. Lady was… she was carved, man."

"Crap," I said, my stomach turning to lead. I looked at the clock, saw that it was a quarter after eight. "All right, let me get my coat, then— hey, can I bring one of my people? She's good with this sort of thing, and she needs to learn more, maybe meet some of your people."

"We already _know,_ Murphy, Harry," Rawlins said, giving me a weird look.

"Not Murph," I said, "our one full-time employee, Buffy Sinclair."

"She in the know?" Rawlins asked, meaning the supernatural.

"Oh, yeah," I said as I grabbed my duster, checked for my blasting rod in the holster inside it, made sure I had my shield bracelet on (I did) and grabbed my staff. "Way in the know."

"Bring her along, then," Rawlins agreed. "Shall I meet you down at the door I came in, or out front?"

"Out front," I said. "You driving?"

"Sure," he said easily. "I'll meet you out front."

I went to Buffy's apartment on the third floor and knocked. She opened the door dressed for work, saw my face and said, "We starting early today?"

"Yeah," I said, and sighed. "Cops sent a man over, they want me to look at a scene— apparently, a women was murdered and 'carved up.' I was hoping—"

"I'll get my jacket and shoes, you go down and leave a note for Karrin," she said, and turned back into her apartment to do just that.

I left a note for Karrin, and Buffy and I went out to find Rawlins in an unmarked sedan at the curb. I took the front passenger's side, she sat behind Rawlins, and he pulled out immediately while I made introductions.

After I'd finished with who's who and they'd said they were pleased to meet each other, Rawlins looked at Buffy in the rearview and said, "You know, if Harry'd told me your last name was Summers, I'd probably have believed him."

"I get that a lot," Buffy said. "Makes me want to strangle either my parents or Joss Whedon. Or both."

Rawlins snickered, nodded, and said, "Maybe you could dye your hair or something— but I'm not sure that would help."

"Too much work," Buffy said. She smiled a little and added, "Besides, there are way worse fates than being compared to a bona fide super hero and cultural icon."

"Good point," Rawlins said, and looked sideways at me. "So, you want to hear what's weird, or wait until we get to the scene? Won't be but a few minutes to get there."

"Let's wait," I said. I sighed and scrubbed my face. "Been a while since I worked with you SI folks, but… I prefer to see things for myself first."

"Good enough," Rawlins said. He said nothing for a moment, then said, "You know, hiring Karrin Murphy, making her a partner like you did… that made you pretty popular with a lot of us in SI, even some outside of it. She was drifting, without a job to go to, and what you did? We old timers are gonna remember it, Dresden. You need anything we can do for you on the quiet, you just call me."

"You guys don't owe me a thing," I said firmly. "Karrin is a treasure, and so is Buffy. With them in the firm, I can take a lot more cases, and actually have people who can do things like take pictures, use recording devices, cell phones and computers. They're making me good money, Rawlins, so you guys—"

"Owe you," Rawlins said in a 'don't mess with me' voice. "Now shut up, we're here."

He pulled to the curb maybe fifty feet down from a mom-and-pop convenience store, and I could see that most of the activity here was centered on the alley just past the store. I saw several familiar faces, and Lieutenant John Stallings, who'd taken over Special Investigations when Murphy got demoted some years back, came over right away.

"Harry Dresden," he said with a small, strained smile. He offered me his hand, and looked at Buffy. "I was half expecting Murphy to be with you— not like I'm complaining. This your other PI?"

"Buffy Sinclair, this is Lieutenant John Stallings," I said, and they shook. "He's in the know, and he's a cop Murphy respects."

"And in SI, the praise just doesn't come any higher than that," Stallings interjected.

"John, Buffy's shaping up into a crack investigator, and she's got her fair share of experience with the weirdness," I said. I looked towards the alley and said, "So, what have we got?"

"Lady bought a couple of gallons of milk in the store," Stallings said, leaning against the sedan that Rawlins had driven us here in. "She left, and the owners heard nothing. Ten minutes later, they hear some kid screaming for someone to call the cops, and the owner's wife called us while he went out to look. Woman was halfway down the alley, dead and in a pool of blood. The wounds… he carved her up in a pattern, one that looks like it might be something you'd know about."

"Any ID on her?" I asked.

"Not yet— her purse is under her body, but the Forensics boys are still working the area." He dry scrubbed his face and said, "I probably should have waited, but I… thought Murphy had said something about how she liked to get you on a scene as fast as possible, because some of what you do is time sensitive, so I thought… well, this way you get to look as soon as they're done in there."

"I get it," I said, and nodded. "That's the smart way to do things, thanks. I can learn the most if I'm there soonest— assuming that this is something from my end of the street, anyway."

"All right, then I did it right," Stallings said. "Thanks, Dresden."

"No problem."

Twenty minutes later, a uniformed cop came up to Stallings and said, "Sir, Forensics is through, said you can bring your consultants in now."

"Any ID on the body?" Stallings asked as we went towards the alley.

"Yes, sir, her purse was undisturbed, and she had a little over a hundred dollars in there— wasn't a robbery." The cop paged back one in his notebook and said, "Her name was Charity Carpenter, age forty-three—"

I froze in mid-step, my stomach dropping to my shoes, and I said in a voice caught somewhere between fury and dread, "What did you say!"

Somewhere behind me, I heard Buffy make a low, hurt sound.

"Her name was Charity Carpenter," the uniform repeated, looking confused. "She was forty-three years old. We have a number for her home, but no one's answering, and—"

"Oh, god, no!" I whispered, and I started running for the crime scene.

Somewhere behind me, I heard Stallings call out, and I heard light footsteps behind me, knew that Buffy was coming with me.

I dodged cops, ducked under tape, heard Stallings behind me, yelling that it was okay, to let me through.

Charity lay in the middle of the alley dressed in jeans and a badly hacked-up sweatshirt. Her eyes, those sometimes-hard, always lively eyes, were open and empty, staring at the late March sky above without seeing it.

She had been stabbed by someone who knew what he was doing; the wound hadn't bled a lot, because he'd gotten her heart on the first try, and his knife had been large enough to pretty much destroy it with one blow. Her sweatshirt had been cut open and spread out like wings, and there were carvings on her stomach and the upper slopes of her breasts, sigils that I recognized— and that meant this wasn't a thing of magic, not real magic. This was a crazy, maybe a serial killer. Maybe he thought he was doing magic, but he wasn't; the sigils were from the Necronomicon, which had no power to do anything, not since the White Council saw it published, the spells in it made useless, the beings it was supposed to summon up refusing the call after so many tried to use it.

_Just_ a psychopath. My friends wife, the foster-mother of my little girl, mother of my apprentice and of six other children, had been killed— by _just_ a crazy man, maybe a serial killer.

I was pretty sure I wouldn't be able to help— and that made me sick, sick with anger and a sense of helplessness.

"Harry," Stallings said from behind me. "Harry… what's wrong, man?"

"She's a friend," Buffy said, her voice ragged with tears. "She's a friend, the wife of one of his best friends."

"Aw, shit," Stallings said, his voice genuinely sorrowful. "Harry, I'm sorry. If I'd known—"

"You couldn't have known," I said, my voice dull and listless. "There was no way for you to know, Stallings.

"I don't think this was about magic— this looks like just a crazy man, but… let me look. I should be sure."

I closed my eyes and reached for my Sight, the wizard's ability to see magic and its traces. When I opened my eyes, I saw that no magic had been used here, that Charity hadn't been killed by anything supernatural.

"This wasn't magic," I said, my voice cracking. "Maybe— he may have thought it was, but those sigils… they don't mean anything anymore. They're from a book called the Necronomicon— you can get it in any Barnes and Nobles."

"All right, Harry," Stallings said. "Is there… no. Let's get you out of here."

I stood up— and my stomach rebelled. I made it to an open garbage can before I threw up my breakfast, and I rolled sideways, stood there leaning against the wall with my eyes closed for a moment. I felt Buffy's presence a moment later, and her hand slipped into mine and squeezed gently. I opened my eyes, looked down at her, and said, "Thanks."

She nodded, didn't say anything or try to wipe the tears away from her face.

We walked out of the alley behind Stallings, and a lot of cops just stood silently, watching us.

When we came out of the alley, I saw Charity's van parked across the street and down a little. I hadn't seen it before, but I pointed it out to Stallings, and he nodded and passed word to his men.

"Harry… I sent a detective over to Carpenter Contracting to tell the lady's husband already," Stalling said. "Do you want to…."

"Yes," I said, my voice a dry rasp. "Can you call him, tell him to wait for us? I… I should tell him."

"I will," Stalling said. He offered me his hand, and I shook it. "I'm sorry as hell, Harry. I wish…."

"I know," I said, and nodded. "It's not your fault, man."

"If you can't tell your friend, my man will," Stallings said. "I'll make sure he knows that he's to let you decide."

"Thanks, but… I'll tell him," I said. "I have to."

Rawlins was waiting for us at the car, and that man earned my undying friendship when he held out a bottle of water, a mini-sized bottle of Scope mouthwash, and a can of Coke. I rinsed my mouth with water, then with mouthwash, then took the Coke and got in the car.

Rawlins had barely gotten started when the radio crackled and told him that Michael wasn't at his office, he was on a job site. Rawlins apparently knew the area where the job was, and he drove us to the place with no fuss, muss or getting lost.

We arrived at a big, tree-covered yard in Evergreen Park, a very nice suburb, saw that a house had been started in amongst the trees— that had to cost a pretty penny, getting things done around trees— and almost as soon as we got out of the car, Buffy's head turned, locked on to something, and she called, "Xander!"

Xander turned around and stared for a moment, then put down the coil of wire he had over one shoulder and started our way at a fast trot.

" 'Xander…?' " I heard Rawlins say softly. "He a friend of yours, too, Dresden?"

"Yes," I said, my voice flat. "He is."

Rawlins didn't say any more, but when I glanced his way, he was looking at Xander oddly, apparently cataloguing his resemblance to Nicholas Brendon, putting it up beside Buffy's resemblance to Sarah Prinze, and making some interesting numbers come up— but I didn't really care.

"Buffy?" Xander said as he stopped before us. "Harry? What's wrong?"

"Where's Michael?" I asked, my voice still flat and uninflected.

"He's… around back," Xander said, his eyes flickering back and forth between Buffy and I, and obviously not liking what he saw. "Should I get him?"

"Yes, please," I said. I was having a hard time keeping my breathing even, but I managed it. Buffy's hand crept back into mine, and I could feel her trembling just a little.

Xander took a few steps away, pulled a walkie-talkie from a hip pocket, and spoke into it for a moment. I heard an answer, but couldn't tell if it was Michael's voice or not, and Xander stuck the radio back in his pocket, said simply, "He's coming. Should I wait here or… or go away?"

Buffy didn't answer, but I could feel her gaze on me. "I think you should stay, man," I said, and now my voice was starting to crack a little bit. I didn't want to do this, I didn't want to tell my friend that his wife was dead— but he was my friend, and I owed him hearing this from someone he cared about, not just a cop who, while he'd be polite and honestly sorry, hadn't known Charity at all.

Michael came hurrying around from the back of the in-progress house, limped over to us at the best speed he could manage on his cane, and stopped in front of me.

"Harry, what is it?" he asked. "What's wrong? Did something happen to Molly?"

"No, Michael," I said, and I found my voice sounding watery and weak. "Michael, I— there's no easy way to do this, man, I'm sorry, I am so sorry, but… Michael, Charity is… she's gone, Michael. Charity's dead."

He stared at me for a moment, his mouth open, his eyes disbelieving.

"I'm sorry," I said again.

"She… Charity…?" Michael said, his voice full of disbelief. "No, there must be a mistake, Harry, you have to be mistaken, Charity— Charity can't… oh, God, please, no!"

Michael fell to his knees, great, wrenching sobs tearing out of him with the suddenness of an explosion, and I went and knelt opposite him, hugged him, held him as best I could against the shattering of his world.

After a while, Xander drove Michael home while Rawlins drove Buffy and I to my building. Michael's mother was going to go and get the children, and Buffy and I were going to go over there right away at Michael's insistence, with Murphy if she wasn't out on a case. I wanted my own car, though, and there was a call I wanted to make anyway, so we went home first.

We walked in to find Murphy in her office, reading a novel. She took one look at my face, bounced to her feet and asked, "My god, Harry, what's wrong?"

"Charity," I said, my voice low. "Charity Carpenter. She was murdered this morning."

"Oh, no," Murphy breathed. "Does Michael know?"

"Yes," I said, and dropped to a seat in the lobby. "He wants us all to come over, Karrin, he— he's in shock, and I think he needs all of us with him."

"Of course," she said, nodding. "I'll get my coat. Why don't we take my car, I don't think you should be driving right now."

"Good idea," I admitted. I probably wasn't up to driving, honestly. I stood and headed for my office. "I have a call to make first, though."

I went to my office, looked at the clock— it was nine-fifteen, only an hour since Rawlins had buzzed at my door. It felt like years.

"He won't mind, not for this," I muttered as I started dialing a number.

Despite it being only seven-fifteen in Los Angeles, a voice answered on the second ring, speaking in Spanish. I asked for Carlos Ramirez, and the voice asked me to wait for just a moment, in English this time.

It was more like two minutes later, and Carlos sounded fuzzy when he said, "I haven't had any coffee yet, so this better be important."

"It's Harry, Carlos," I said. I swallowed and said, "It's important, man."

He sharpened up immediately as he said, "What wrong, _hermano_?"

"Cancel your trip to Edinburgh today," I told him. "Molly… she's going to need you, Carlos. Her mom was murdered this morning."

For a moment, Carlos said nothing— then he started a running stream of Spanish that I didn't know— but the tone made it plain he was swearing. After a moment, he wound down, and he said, "I'm on my way to Chicago, Harry— I need a shower and a cup of coffee, but I'll be there in ninety minutes.

"Was this about her dad, Harry? About him having been a Knight of the Cross?"

"It didn't look like it," I said. "Looked like just a random crazy."

"Dammit!" Carlos snarled. "This is— I liked her, Harry. Intimidating and all, I really, really liked that lady. And Molly, her dad, all those _kids_… Harry, can you think of any way we can help with this?"

"Maybe one way," I said, my brain turning over. It was after Ostara, now. Mab's power would be waning as Titania's rose, so it should be safe to do what I was thinking of. "It'll have to wait until after the crime scene people are through, and it would be best done after dark."

"Okay, that's good," Carlos said. "Can I get in on it?"

"Yeah, 'Los," I agreed. "If there's anything I can do, it'll be us, not just me, that does it."

"_Gracias,"_ Carlos said. "All right, when you see Molly, tell her I'm on my way."

"Will do," I said, and hung up the phone.

I came out to find Karrin waiting for us in the lobby, and Buffy just coming out of her office.

"Dawn's going to catch a cab over there," Buffy said. "I called her, she's… well, she loved Charity, too."

"Yeah," I said, nodding. "And with all those kids… hugs and laps in large supply are probably a good thing."

We left, arrived to find Michael's mother just arriving with the kids— and I could tell from the looks on their faces that they hadn't been told yet. I started to get angry— then made myself stop and think. Telling them all at once, letting their father tell them, that was probably the way to do things.

I had never met Michael's mother, but she apparently had heard of me. She nodded my way as she started the kids towards the house, and I nodded back, went to follow along behind her, make sure she didn't lose anyone, Buffy and Murphy just behind me.

Maggie fell back a little, slipped her hand into mine, looked up at me with wide, frightened eyes, and asked, "Why's everyone so sad, Daddy?"

"I think… I think you should hear that with the others, honey," I said, my voice an excellent impersonation of that of a boy in the throes of puberty— all over the scale. "It's… sometimes, hearing bad things together makes them a tiny bit less bad."

"Okay," Maggie whispered— and she clung to my hand all the way into the house.

Michael was in the living room, sitting on the couch with Molly beside him, weeping softly. The younger children saw their father's red eyes and white face, their oldest sister crying, and some of them started crying themselves, and pretty much all of them flung themselves on the couch, trying to touch Michael or Molly or both.

He told them. I think it was probably the hardest thing he had ever done, but Michael told his children that their mother was dead, and he managed to do it without falling apart until the deed was done. Then he simply gathered all of them that he could into his arms, and they wept together.

Maggie went with the others, climbed into the huge pile of weeping Carpenters without hesitation— and I felt no jealousy at all. Michael and Charity were her parents in almost all ways, now, and this was the second mother figure she'd lost in less than six months. She needed to be a part of a family right now, and they needed her.

The rest of us slipped out into the kitchen, sat and waited for the Carpenter family to need us.

It wasn't a long wait— but it was a hard one.


	17. Chapter 17

_Interlude:_

She woke with a very odd feeling in her stomach. It wasn't a stomach ache, it wasn't fear, but it was… something. Something was changed, something was different, though she didn't know what that something might be.

She rose, cleaned up, and went out to breakfast. While sitting in the diner she chose, she heard a name from the TV, and jerked herself out of the booth she was in to go closer to the counter.

"Could you turn that up, please?" she asked the waitress behind the counter, and the woman did so.

"—appears to have been a ritualized killing," said the woman reporter on the screen. "Police say that they have several potential leads, but do ask that anyone with information regarding the murder of Charity Carpenter contact them at…."

"My God," she whispered as she moved back to her booth. "That's what changed. Oh, my God. That… that shouldn't have happened, it shouldn't have been _able_ to happen, I don't understand."

"There are protections on the family," said a man as he sat down opposite her. "But those protections apply only to threats of a supernatural nature. A human agent… she had no angelic protection against that."

She stared at the man across from her as the waitress came over and offered him coffee, which he accepted. When the waitress left, the man smiled a little and spoke again.

"You have taken the long way around," he said softly, "but you are welcome, you know. And there are ways that you can serve, still. More than one, even."

"I… you… should I be… kneeling?"

"Don't be silly," he admonished her. "That would only call attention to us both, and neither of us wants that.

"No, I have simply come to tell you this; there are choices to be made, choices about how you will serve, if service is your desire."

"It… yes," she said, blushing and looking at the table. "Service is my desire. But I also desire…."

"Revenge?" he asked. She nodded, blushed, and could not meet his gaze. He said, very softly, "That is not something you need be ashamed of— but it is something you must let go of, if you're to be of service in… the most direct way."

"What… do you mean?" she asked, honestly confused. "I had intended to use my magic to get my revenge, to help— what other way can I serve?"

The figure seated across from her— she could not possibly think of him as a man— leaned across the table, and whispered a single name against her ear.

She reeled back in shock, stared at him in open disbelief as her body tried to press through the back of the booth behind her.

"Think about it," the man said. He stood, stopped the waitress that had come to deliver her breakfast, and handed the waitress a twenty. "The lady's breakfast and my coffee, and you keep the change."

The waitress thanked him effusively, and the woman whose breakfast he'd bought slowly turned her eyes to her food, and began to eat mechanically as she tried to digest the offer that had just been extended to her.

After a few minutes, Buffy quietly got up and went out the back door, murmuring that she was going outside to wait for Dawn, so that the Carpenters wouldn't be interrupted by her sister's arrival. She hadn't been gone even two minutes when she returned with her sister in tow. Even with waiting for a cab, the Field Museum was enough closer to Michael and Ch— to Michael's house that Dawn hadn't been far behind us. She came in with Buffy, hugged me briefly, then sat on Buffy's other side, between her sister and Xander.

"What happened, Harry?" Murphy asked after a look to make sure that the door between kitchen and dining room was shut. "Can you… tell us what you know?"

I did so, my voice cracking a couple of times— and Murphy looked confused.

"No magic?" Murphy said, shaking her head. "Harry, that's— are you sure?"

"Yeah," I said, nodding. "I'm positive Murph. I wouldn't make that mistake, not about this.

"Besides, Michael and his family have… protection from supernatural threats. I didn't think of that at the scene, but it's true. So… a crazy. Probably."

"But… she was trained!" Murphy protested. "She fought with us at Arctis Tor, she— she knew what she was doing, Harry, some crazy man couldn't have just—"

"Karrin," I said gently, and she stopped, looked at me closely. "Karrin, two things; first, Charity was trained with weapons. Swords, hammers, the like. I don't think she did a lot of unarmed fighting. And second, even if she did… Karrin, if you stopped practicing your martial arts skills today, just… gave all that up, and I were to attack you three years from today, and I'd stayed in practice with my admittedly much lesser skills… what would happen?"

"You'd very probably beat me down," Karrin said, her eyes filling with understanding. "When Michael was hurt three years ago, Charity didn't have a reason to be training as a warrior any more. And given how relieved she seemed to have her husband back as a full-time husband, I'll bet she didn't even miss the training."

"Yeah," I sighed. "Yeah, that was my thought, too. Dammit!"

We sat and looked morosely at each other for several minutes before the door into the kitchen opened, and Molly came in with Michael's mother, both of them red-eyed and sniffly.

Molly came straight to me, pulled me up, and hugged me hard enough that my side protested some— but I didn't react, just hugged back.

"Thank you," Molly said against my chest. "Harry, thank you for… for telling Daddy yourself. I know that had to be hard, had to hurt— but I think it made it a tiny bit easier for him, so thank you."

"You're welcome," I said, my own voice riding the ragged edge of a sob. "Molly, I wish…."

"I know," Molly said. She stepped back, finally, looked up at me and said, "Harry, I can't think straight right now. Could you give me Carlos's number, I can't remember it."

"He's on his way here, Molly," I said gently. "I called him, told him, and he'll be here as fast as he can get here. Before eleven this morning, I'll bet."

"Oh, god, thank you," Molly gasped, and hugged me again. Then she seemed to remember that she hadn't come in here alone, and she said, "Oh! I'm sorry, Grandma, everyone, I just—"

"Do _not_ apologize right now," Molly's grandmother said— in almost perfect stereo with Dawn. Michael's mother looked pleasantly surprised at Dawn's speaking up, and nodded at her before accepting Dawn's waved "you first" gesture. "No one expects you to be little Miss Manners right now, Molly, so don't you dare apologize for not introducing everyone the second you came in the room. Frankly, thanking Mr. Dresden for his kindness to Michael was much more urgent than introducing us."

"Okay," Molly gulped, and nodded at Dawn and her grandma both. "But let me fix it now.

"Everyone, this is my Dad's mother, Ellen Carpenter. Grandma, these are our friends— the best friends this family ever had, I think.

"This is Harry Dresden, the wizard Daddy worked with so much, and my mentor before I was admitted to the White Council."

When my eyes stopped bugging out of my head, I shook Ellen Carpenter's hand, and said a totally sincere, "It's good to meet you ma'am, but I wish the circumstances were anything but what they are."

"Ellen, please," she said, snorting a tiny laugh at the expression I'd mostly managed to wipe off my face, before shaking my hand. "All of you, call me Ellen."

"Harry, then," I said. I gave Molly a tiny glare. "I wasn't aware that you were in the know about magic."

"Well, they had to tell me, didn't they?" Ellen asked, looking surprised. "They had to explain Michael's frequent absences and sudden departures— and you couldn't expect a Knight of the Cross to _lie_ to his _mother,_ now could you?"

That startled a tiny little laugh out of me, and I nodded. "A very good point."

Molly made the rest of the introductions, and was completely honest about them, even about the Scoobies, and Ellen Carpenter took it all in stride.

After the introductions had been made, Ellen and Molly bustled around to get drinks for us— or tried. We took over for ourselves, and then helped get drinks for those children who hadn't pretty much passed out while leaning or laying on their Father after crying themselves out— for the moment. Maggie was awake, as were Alicia and Matthew, but the rest were asleep on the couch, leaning on or laying on their father, who sat and simply touched all of his children in turn, over and over again, assuring himself that they were all right.

Daniel, Michael's oldest, arrived home from college— Michael had called the school, but it had taken time to find him, as he was between classes— and he ended up going away with his grandma for a bit. He was old enough that crying in front of people who weren't family was hard for him, and Ellen saw that, led him away to get some of his pain out.

Carlos arrived at five minutes to eleven, and he held Molly and let her cry until she was done— which took a while.

The rest of us… we did what we could. We made lunch, a simple thing of soup and sandwiches, we helped Michael get the kids to eat, we made Michael eat (that one was mostly his mother and Molly, I admit it), and we tried really hard to make sure that no member of the Carpenter family was left alone unless they both truly _wanted_ to be alone— and were capable of _handling_ being alone.

Maggie… that kid made me proud. She spent some time crying in my lap, some time hugging me or just holding my hand— but mostly, she spent her time with Little Harry and Hope, the two youngest of Michael's kids, or with Michael— or all three. She made sure I knew that she was aware that I was there for her, and then she went where she felt most comforted and most needed.

I honestly wasn't jealous, for which I gave myself props.

The cops came by not long after lunch, Stallings and Rawlins themselves, and spoke to Michael alone for a while— or almost alone. He insisted that I be there, and I went, listened to their questions and his answers, gave input when asked for, and stood by my friend.

None of us learned anything.

After the cops had left, Michael sat in his chair— we'd gone to the rec room for the interview— and stared into space. After a couple of minutes, he spoke.

"Harry," he said softly, "I know that you've already determined that this wasn't a supernatural attack, and I know that is your strongest field… but is there any way that you might be… be able to find out… anything? Anything about who… who killed her?"

"There may be," I said, and placed a hand on his shoulder— I was still standing beside and a little behind him. "I can't promise that it will work, Michael, but you have my word— I will do all that I can."

"I knew that before you said it," Michael said. He stood slowly, and squeezed my arm. "I knew it— and I love you for it."

"I love you, too, Michael," I said, admitting it aloud for the first time. "And I loved Charity. If I can make it possible that her killer pays for what he did? I will."

"And I will help," said a familiar, Russian-accented bass voice from the door to the living room. "I will do anything that I can, Michael.

"I am sorry, my friend— I would give up anything to be able to undo this."

Michael took a single step towards Sanya, the only remaining active Knight of the Cross, a huge, muscular Black man who had been born and raised in Russia, and when Michael staggered, Sanya caught him— and Michael was again gone into the land of grief, leaning on his brother Knight and crying. I slipped out to give them time to talk, and Michael time to get out a little more of his pain.

I found myself in the kitchen, which was starting to fill up with food— already, the neighbors had brought dishes over, and some of the families of Michael's employees. I looked around to find Dawn, Molly and Carlos talking quietly, and I interrupted to ask where Buffy and Murphy were.

"They went to the office to get something," Dawn said, and frowned a little. "Or maybe it was the apartment. I don't really recall. They've been gone a while, should be back soon."

"Oh-kay," I said slowly. I felt kind of paranoid, but I thought maybe I had a right, about then. "Could you maybe call one of them…?"

"No need, Harry," Murphy said, stepping in the back door. "We're fine— but thanks. I understand and appreciate you worrying right now. Especially since Buffy and I just broke into your place— which wasn't hard, you didn't lock up when you left this morning, you idiot." She smiled to take the sting out of the last two words, and reached over to open the back door for Buffy. "We locked up for you."

Buffy came in then— carrying my guitar.

"Uh… what?" I said when Buffy presented it to me.

"Harry… music." Buffy looked at me seriously. "I know, it seems wrong to play anything cheerful, maybe even to play, right now— but it might… well, let people, especially the kids, get more of the hurting out. I mean— I remember, Harry, and I wasn't even a kid, I was at least on the edge of being a grown up.

"I think if you go outside and sit on the back deck and start playing, you're going to find yourself surrounded by people, most of them kids, really quickly.

"Will you try it?"

I thought about it. I remembered how alone I felt when my Dad died, and I remembered how I'd wished that there were people with me who understood.

I remembered singing along with some song on the radio— and pretending that the people I was singing with were there, and cared about this recently orphaned kid that was singing along with them.

"Yeah," I said, nodding. "I'll try it."

I'll be damned if she wasn't right. I sat down on the back deck, I thought about it— and I started playing something that I'd learned when playing for therapy, something that was very kid-friendly.

I can't sing. Let me make that perfectly plain. But I really could play, and I did have an unexpected accomplice. Buffy, like Sarah Prinze, could sing. Oh, not opera or anything— but she could stay on key, and she had a pleasant voice. So I played the tune once instrumentally, and as kids drifted out, Buffy came with them, and gave me a gentle "told you so" look. I nodded agreement, finished the song— and Buffy said, "Play that again, Harry," so I did.

This time, Buffy came in on cue, and together we performed Puff the Magic Dragon for the Carpenter kids— plus their father, their grandmother, Dawn, Xander, Karrin, Carlos and Sanya.

When we finished, the younger kids even clapped a little. After they'd stopped, Michael said, "Play something else Harry— please?"

I did. I played everything I'd actually learned in my time of playing for therapy, and I got a pleasant surprise a couple of times. The first one came when I played Dust in the Wind— and Daniel Carpenter sang along, his voice on key and never fading.

The second surprise came when I had run out of songs I knew, and I just… started playing. My thoughts turned to Charity, a woman whom I hadn't understood for most of the years I'd known her, but whom I'd come to understand when trying to find Molly after she'd been kidnapped by faeries. Charity had shown me more of herself in the few hours we spent together before the (successful) rescue attempt we made, and over the course of that rescue, than she had ever allowed me to see before— and I had come away with a new respect for her, a new admiration. Over the three years between that rescue and my death, I'd come to care for her— and in the time since my return, I'd come to love the lady, to think of her as my sister like Michael was my brother.

All of that came out as I played. Charity, or my perceptions of her, flowed from my conscious mind, through that mysterious spark in the soul that we call creativity, and out through my fingers and my guitar.

And the Carpenters understood— even the youngest children knew, somehow, that I was playing not just _for_ their lost mother, but _about_ her. They sat and they listened— and they stared when I played Charity, the wife of my friend, who really didn't like me— stared and laughed, just a little bit. They smiled when I played Charity, the woman who took care of her family first. They stared with mouths open as I played Charity Carpenter, Warrior, who had attacked Arctis Tor to get back her oldest child. When I played Charity, the Mother who had brought Molly back and then brought her home, they sat and listened quietly, and I saw the first tears. When I played Charity, my apprentice's mother, who had come to respect me as Molly's teacher, even approve of my methods, the tears flowed a little more.

And when I brought it all together, played the woman I had finally come to know pretty well far too late in my life, they mostly fell apart, clung to each other, to their father, or Molly, their Grandma, even Sanya and (to my surprised delight) Maggie to Buffy, and they wept openly and honestly.

So did I, and I didn't even try to hide it, because my friend's children didn't need to see anyone be stupid and ashamed about their emotions, even if I was that stupid sometimes. Hell, most times.

I set the guitar aside, wished I'd had more time to toughen up my fingers, because my nails were chipped and I could feel the blisters starting already. I pressed the fingers of my left hand out flat against my leg and barely beat off a bad case of cramping fingers, which I hate.

A shadow fell across me, and I looked up to see Michael reaching down to pull me to my feet. I let him— and got crushed in one of his he-should-probably-trademark-them bear-hugs.

"Thank you, Harry," Michael said, his voice ragged. "Thank you. I know that Charity heard that— and I know that she is smiling and grateful."

"You're welcome," I said, and gave back as good as I got on the hug front. "I don't know if I'll be able to play that again, but if I can, I will— any time you want to hear it."

"Thank you," he said, and gave me just a hint of a smile. Then he stepped aside—

—and Molly hit me with a rib-creaker that proved beyond all doubt that she was her father's daughter. She stepped aside—

—and Daniel, the least demonstrative of Michael's kids, and the one at the worst age for being open about your emotions (for a male, at least), hugged me.

When he moved aside— you get the idea. All of the kids hugged me, and Michael's mother besides.

"Harry," Michael said softly, after his mother had let go of me and Maggie had climbed into my arms, sat in my lap when I sat, "thank you, again."

"You're welcome, all of you," I said, and looked around to make sure the kids all saw that I meant them, too. "It… did me some good, too. Thanks for thinking of it, Buffy."

"You're welcome," she said, smiling at me. "But don't thank me too much— I got to hear it, too."

"Could you play some more, please, Harry," asked Hope, the youngest girl.

I opened my mouth and reached for my guitar, and Michael said a firm, "No, Harry. Not today, at least. Your fingers are blistering, aren't they?"

"Well, not yet," I said, carefully not turning my fingers over because I thought I might be lying. "I could—"

"No, you can't," Michael said, his voice firm.

"If your hands hurt, we'll wait," Hope said immediately. She gave me a stern look that almost killed me, because it was so close to the stern looks Charity had given me over the years. "Thank you for offering— but you don't get to hurt yourself to make us feel better, not when you're practically family."

" 'Practically' my foot," Molly said, her eyes on mine. "He is family. Right, Daddy?"

"Very much so," Michael said, his tone soft but firm. "Very, very much so."

I started to get all choked up, and Amanda saved me from it by saying, "Then I guess I can't call him 'Bill' any more, even if we do already have a Harry— right, Uncle Bill?"

Choked turned to chuckle, and I said, "Darn straight."

"Uncle Harry." Hope said, and nodded. "Daddy?"

"If Harry doesn't mind, I certainly don't," Michael said, and he gave me a smile that he shouldn't have been able to give, not so soon after his wife's death— a smile that said, "Welcome home," and was totally sincere.

"New rule," I said, looking around. "I will now answer to 'Uncle Harry,' but it is not required; just 'Harry' is fine with me. Except for this one." I squeezed my daughter. "She's stuck with 'Daddy' or 'Dad,' okay, Maggie?"

"Okay, Daddy." She wiggled closer, and that felt wonderful.

"Uncle Bill," Amanda said, making a point of accenting the 'Bill,' "would ice water help your fingers?"

I told her no thanks, and we all sat around outside for a half an hour, talking a little, but mostly just being together.

Stars and stones, but that felt good.

After supper, which was a pot-luck of friend-and-neighbor sympathy food, I found myself alone in the kitchen with Sanya and Carlos, and Sanya pushed me aside as I started trying to do dishes.

"Your fingers are a mess," Sanya scolded. "You would pop blisters by scrubbing, Harry, and that would mean longer without playing the guitar— which the children love, as well as we adults.

"I did not realize you played, let alone as… brilliantly as all that."

"It was… a gift." I said, my voice low. "One I'll never forget."

Sanya nodded, Carlos looked at me a little oddly, then let it go when I didn't say any more.

"You told Michael that you would investigate Charity's death," Sanya said as Carlos stepped over beside him, took over rinsing the dishes that Sanya scrubbed, and started drying them. "When will you start?"

"I'd like to be here when the little ones go to bed," I said, tilting my head towards the living room, where the kids and Michael sat with Father Forthill, who'd arrived some time after my impromptu concert.

I'd expected Forthill earlier, but it turns out that the staff at St. Mary of the Angels really doesn't spend a lot of time in front of the TV, and he hadn't heard about it until a parishioner mentioned it to him in the afternoon, at which point he'd dropped everything and come straight over. He didn't berate anyone for not calling him, in fact, gave Molly a stern talking-to when she started to blame herself, pointing out that in the midst of grief and shock, no one could remember any significant percentage of everything.

"That is a good idea," Sanya said, nodding. "I think… tonight, the first night without Charity to be hugged, is going to be hard for all of them. An extra uncle will be welcome."

"Yeah," I agreed, misting up just a little. "That those kids, this family could do that for me in the middle of this… kinda makes me feel like several billion dollars."

"You did no less for them," Sanya said, grinning at me over his shoulder.

"I hope I can do more." I shook my head a little. "This is… no magic. Makes it a little harder. But I have an idea."

"What are you going to do?" Sanya asked, his voice genuinely curious.

"Oh, well," I said, smiling a little, "I thought I might try an old standard— and ask some pizzas for help."

Sanya broke out into a hearty laugh immediately, while poor Carlos just stared at me in confusion— or maybe like I'd lost my mind, could've been either one.

Putting the three youngest (counting Maggie) Carpenter kids to bed that night involved a team effort; Michael and Molly helped Daniel and Matthew get Hope and Harry ready for bed, while Buffy and I helped Alicia get Maggie ready. It wasn't that the older kids needed help getting the younger ones to cooperate with taking baths, brushing teeth, saying prayers, etc, it was just that none of the younger ones seemed to think that there was such a thing as "too many people around for hugging" right then. That was pretty okay with me.

For the first time in my life, that night, I tucked my child into bed. It took everything I had to not stand guard over her until she was asleep, or longer than that— but I had work to do, and I had promised Michael that I would do it, so I eventually let Buffy and Alicia tug me from the room.

Once we were downstairs, I gathered in Carlos and Sanya with my eyes, and said to Michael, "Are you okay for a while, Michael? I'd like to get started on investigating… what happened to Charity, now, if you're okay."

"I want to come!" Molly said, bouncing to her feet.

"Molly, this is… not what you were trained for," I said, shaking my head just a little. "Right now… right now I can barely put my emotions far enough aside to be investigating, and I think that, while maybe you could? Even trying would be bad for you."

"Harry's right, Molly," Michael said, reaching up and taking her hand. "He has much more experience at investigation than you do, and this can't be a magical threat, so he won't need your protection.

"Please, Molly, stay here."

"I— okay." Molly gulped tears and sat down next to her father again.

"Is this something where a cop's eye could help, Harry?" Murphy asked from where she sat across from Michael, sharing a couch with Father Forthill and Dawn.

"Not this time, Karrin," I said. I thought for a second, then said, "Tomorrow morning, you think you could give Rawlins a call, see what the cops have?"

"Of course," she said with a nod. "You gonna be late?"

"I don't know, but it could happen," I said. "Depends on if what I try tonight pans out."

"Okay, well," Murphy said, looking thoughtful, "I think I'll hang around here until Sanya comes back, anyway. It's probably silly, but… I want a non-magical fighter here."

"Not silly at all, Murph," I said, and gave her a little grin. "I was going to ask you to stay a while, if Michael doesn't mind."

"I don't mind at all," Michael said, and nodded a 'thank you' at Karrin. "I appreciate it, honestly."

"All right, then," I said. "Sanya, you have a key, right?"

"_Da,"_ he said, nodding. "Michael gave me one some time ago, and I have not lost it."

"I'm coming with you, Harry," Buffy said from behind me. "Your side's still not all the way healed, and I want to learn more about your side of the investigations, anyway."

"Okay, that's fine," I said, and she looked surprised, like she'd expected me to argue. "Hey, you've done your share of nose-poking, Buffy. You got pretty good at it, seemed to me, and you're used to weird, so… you're in.

"But I warn you— there may be some fanboy-geeking over you."

Buffy blinked, then sighed, rolled her eyes, and said, "Well, after Will Borden, you'd think I'd be used to that— I can handle it, Harry."

So Sanya, Carlos, Buffy and I took off in Captain Midnight, and we went to the murder scene— after a stop at a Pizza 'Spress franchise on the way, where I grabbed four large pepperoni pizzas. They rode in the front seat between Sanya and I— Buffy was too kind to insist on "shotgun" with Sanya in the car. Carlos had room enough to move, thanks to the Captain's roomy interior, even with the bench seat slid back to accommodate me, but Sanya would have been bouncing his knees off of his own chin with every little bump.

I went to the alley where Charity had been murdered, parked just inside the mouth of the alley, and got out. There was a dumpster a few yards up, closer to the actual scene, with its lid closed. I set the pizzas on that, then turned to face the other three. I opened my mouth, and Sanya gravely stuck his fingers in his ears, causing Carlos and Buffy to look at the Knight of the Cross as though he'd lost his mind.

"Sanya's been through this before, he knows the drill," I said, nodding at him in thanks. "I need you two to stick your fingers in your ears for a minute, so I can say the true name of a friend without letting you hear it."

"Oh, okay," Carlos said, and promptly shoved his fingers in his ears.

Buffy looked a little confused, but sighed and did the same.

I'd done this so many times that I no longer needed a circle, or blood, or anything. I just infused my voice with my will, and spoke a name, very softly, three times, then waved at my friend that they could unplug their ears. I asked them to just wait quietly, and no one argued.

It took most of five minutes, this time— I was actually starting to worry before Toot-Toot showed up.

He dropped out of the sky like a stooping hawk, if stooping hawks came with lavender skin, darker lavender hair and a silvery glow around them. Oh, and insect wings.

Toot hovered in the air a couple of feet from my head, his fifteen-inch tall figure that of a slender young man. He had upgraded his wardrobe again. He wore white chest armor with black trim, that, after a moment, I realized was stormtrooper armor from an oversized action figure, and somewhere, he'd found a rebel forces pilot's helmet, too, though it hung from an improvised belt right now, along with his box knife and a long nail with the blunt end wrapped in string to protect Toot's hand from the touch of steel. He also had on black pants with a red stripe up the outside, bloused into high boots, both of which looked to have come from a Han Solo figure of the same size as the stormtrooper figure that had provided Toot-Toot with his armor….

Toot-Toot had gone Star Wars, which, while amusing, was also pretty cool.

He stopped in front of me, maybe a foot away, and stared silently for a moment— then said in a small, worried voice, "Are you really real? Because Mab got her power back, and gave it to another knight, and that can't happen unless the old knight dies, so you really ought to be dead, Harry. I don't know about working for a ghost… or are you a zombie? If you're a zombie, that's not going to work, because zombies are always evil and always hungry and I like my brains right where they are!"

"Major General Toot-Toot Minimus," I said gravely, "I am indeed Harry Dresden, Wizard, and Pizza Lord. Your caution is understandable, commendable and wise— but I am alive, and I need the Za-Lord's guard again.

"And hey— I got pepperoni and the cheese-stuffed crust, Toot."

"HARRY!" Toot shrieked— and flung himself forward to hug my head. "Harry, it's really you! You're back!

"How did you do it? Did you have to fight angels and demons and all sorts of nasties and then build yourself a new body?"

"Well," I said, gently patting his head so he'd unwrap himself from mine, "there's actually a lot of truth in what you said, Toot— but I didn't have to build a new body, and I had help in the last stages."

"Help?" Toot said, swooping back a little. "Who helped you, Harry, that the Za Lord's Guard might properly thank them!"

"Well, one of them is here now," I said, and stepped back to indicate my friends. "You remember Sanya, I'll bet, and you might remember Carlos— he's the one who helped me against the White Court, and he helped make it possible to free your friends from the pale hunters."

Toot-Toot bowed gravely to Carlos, and Carlos managed to fight down a laugh as he bowed back.

"If ever the faeries of the Za-Lord's guard can aid you, Wizard Carlos," Toot-Toot said gravely, "we will gladly do so. You aided our Lord against the pale hunters, so you are owed some piece of the debt we owe him."

"Thank you," Carlos said gravely. He smiled, then, and said, "It's an honor, General."

Toot promptly flew over to Carlos, went right up to his ear, and whispered for a moment. Carlos's eyes went wide, and when he said, "Thank you very, very much, General," his voice was serious— and I realized that Toot had just given my friend his true name, so that Carlos could actually call him at need.

I have the best friends on Earth. Any Earth.

"And this," I said, stepping closer to the trio of my friends, "is one of three new friends who helped me make it back to this world alive, Toot." I tugged Buffy forward a little and said, "Major General Toot-Toot Minimus of the Za-Lord's guard, friend and defender, allow me to introduce you to Buffy Sinclair, who was once known as Buffy Summers— the vampire slayer."

Toot's eyes went impossibly wide, like a cartoon character's, and he emitted a squeal of purest delight. I don't know how he knew about her— maybe he watched TV through people's windows, or read the collected books of comics that Molly had left around my place, but it'd come out once, while he was helping me with a minor case, that he knew about Buffy and admired her.

Now, he flew close to her and bowed very, very deeply, and squeaked, "It is a pleasure to meet the slayer, and an honor to meet the greatest slayer ever to walk."

Buffy bowed back, straight faced, and Toot-Toot turned to me and said, "How did you get her out of the TV, Harry? And can you do it again, because I think it would be neat to meet Luke Skywalker, too!"

I laughed as I said, "I didn't get her out of the TV, Toot, she… well, she accidentally found her way into the far reaches of the Nevernever, and eventually, she and her sister and Xander ended up in Mab's territory, where we ran into each other. They helped me get home, and we're all friends now. They help me a _lot_."

"Wow, Harry, you have all the luck," Toot sighed. He flew once around Buffy's head, then came to hover at attention in front of me. "You said you have need of the Guard, my lord. What do you require?"

I sighed, and said, "Toot, someone I care about was killed today, here in this alley. There wasn't any magic involved, but… could you put the word out, see if any of your people saw anything, whether or not they're in the guard?"

"Oh, no," Toot said, looking said. "I'm sorry, Harry. What did the person who got killed look like?"

I'd come prepared, borrowed a wallet-sized picture of Charity from Michael. "This is her— please, be careful with the photo, it belongs to her husband.

"This happened about an hour after sunrise, Toot," I told him. "The lady was pulled down this alley by someone, probably a man, and… and killed. If you and the Guard can find me any faerie that saw anything, it will help."

"You won't be angry?" Toot asked, sounding like he was asking for form's sake. "I mean— I know you won't, but if you can give your word that you won't be angry at anyone we find for not helping, it will help."

"I swear by my power that I will hold none of the little folk responsible for not interfering," I said formally. "I know that most of you are too small to have helped her, Toot, even if it had been one of the Guard and they'd known she was my friend."

"Okay, Harry," Toot said, and he finally glanced at the four Pizza 'Spress boxes. (I was flattered that it'd taken so long.) "Is that for the Guard who go looking for anyone who saw?"

"It is," I said, nodding that way. "Call them in, General."

Toot reached behind himself, pulled a tiny horn— this one no toy, but a real horn sized for the little folk— and blew a call on it.

Very suddenly, the alley was filled with light as a whole lot of faeries descended on the pizza boxes and made short work of the four large pizzas. Afterwards, instead of the usual fly-off-in-a-scatter, the faeries all flew once around my head, once around Carlos's head, and stopped to bow or curtsy in midair before Buffy. Some of them even waved shyly at Sanya before they left, and we found ourselves alone in the alley.


	18. Chapter 18

Chapter 18

_Interlude:_

She spent the day wandering, wandering and thinking. Her breakfast company had given her something to think about, and she thought hard.

Revenge… she knew that it was not necessarily evil, but that it led to thoughts and emotions that were, at best, not truly positive. Maybe revenge wasn't a negative thing, not always, but… neither was it positive. At least, _very rarely_ was it positive. Under certain circumstances, people could not forget, could not forgive. When that happened… revenge gave them the ability to stop dwelling on things, at least.

"I am having a philosophical crisis, and that's just wrong on so many levels that I can't even _begin_ to count them," she muttered to herself as she passed— oh.

She had known where the place was, of course. But she hadn't thought about coming anywhere near here, especially not now. This was not the time, and she should be moving on, quickly, before—

A shift in the breeze brought her a sound that froze her where she stood. Music. The sound of a lone guitar, playing… something she had never heard before, but that was _beautiful_.

She knew that she shouldn't be here, shouldn't be listening— but she stood where she was until the music stopped, stood with her face up to the sun, her eyes closed… and her entire _body_ listening to the music that came from the back of the picket-fence surrounded house.

When the music stopped, she sighed— satisfied, somehow, by what she'd heard— and took perhaps a dozen steps before it hit her what she had just heard.

She gasped aloud, looked back at the house, stared in wonder for a moment— then smiled, said very softly, "You are welcome… and thank you."

She walked back to her hotel, her mind clearer than it had been in some time, and spent the evening meditating on her course of action. She didn't reach a decision, not that night— but the problem weighed on her less heavily than it might have, before a simple reminder that, whatever else happened… she had helped to create a thing of beauty.

Magic or no magic, she had done one thing irrevocably right— and that showed her more clearly than anything else could have that, whatever her choice, however she chose to act, whether she wielded her magic in the service of others, or chose the other, more direct way of serving, she could serve. That more direct method of service, while it would require her to put aside her desire for revenge, would also put her in contact with those she sought revenge against— and she honestly did not know if she could do that. She didn't know if she was that strong, could _be_ that strong.

_I must decide,_ she thought as she stared out at the night sky, _whether to risk all on magic— or on faith._

She laughed aloud again, this time at her accidental play on words, and turned to go inside, out of the chill, to think about her choices— and their consequences.

_Harry:_

After maybe five minutes of just standing around in an agreeable sort of silence, one of my friends finally spoke.

"Holy crap," Carlos said, a delighted look on his face. "Harry, thanks— you didn't have to cut me in on the debt they owe you, man."

"You helped me live long enough to free the little folk," I said with a shrug. "You deserve some of the credit, 'Los."

"That," Buffy said, her voice slow and dreamy, "was possibly the coolest thing I've seen in… a really long time. They are so _pretty_. And they all seemed to like me."

"Faeries watch TV," Carlos said with a grin. "That's actually kinda cool."

"Yeah," I agreed. "It is."

"So, how long will it take them, you think?" Buffy asked. "They seem to fly really fast."

"Not long," I said, shaking my head. "They are fast— and they're everywhere. So there's a really good chance that one of them saw something. I just hope—"

Toot-Toot came streaking down into the alley, tugging a fairy so small that I could only see its light, not its body, after him. He came to a stop maybe a foot from my face, and I finally managed to see the faerie with him. She was a tiny thing, maybe the size of the top joint of my index finger, and the glow she produced was somewhere between red and pink. She looked… awed, I guess. Not afraid of me, but still intimidated. I nodded at her and smiled, and her glow brightened a little as she smiled tentatively back at me.

"Harry, this is… call her Cerise," Toot-Toot said, and she curtsied. "She saw something this morning, and is willing to tell you— but I'm going to have to help, she can't be loud enough for humans to hear."

"All right, and thank you both," I said, nodding. "What did you see, Cerise?"

Cerise made sounds that, to me, were a lot like the speeded-up speech of some cartoon characters; high-pitched, rapid, and almost-but-not-quite understandable. Once she'd finished, Toot said, "Cerise was just looking for a place to go to sleep, and thinking about the roof of this building, when she saw a human man pull in here in one of those things you ride in. A big one, shaped like a box, but not in two pieces, all one box."

I thought for a second, then said, "Probably a van, good. Go on, please."

More cartoon-bee talk, then Toot said, "The man got out and went to the back of the thing, which was pointed that way— the back was pointed that way." Toot pointed at the end of the alley where the store Charity had visited lay. "He got things out of the back of the— van, is that what it's called, Harry?"

"Probably, and it'll do for now, thanks," I said, nodding encouragement.

Bee-talk. "He got things out and did something with them that made the back of the van go up on one corner. He also did things to himself— put on fake hair, rubbed black stuff from the wheels on his face, and put on those things some of you use to see with. The ones that sit in front of your eyes and hook over your ears?"

"Glasses," I said, thinking. The guy had disguised himself? Why? Did Charity know him, at least by sight, or was he thinking about witnesses?

"He left the van down there past the place with the light over the door," Toot said after listening to Cerise, "but he stuck a big doll under the back of it first. Really big, human sized."

A big doll? Human sized? What the heck…? A mannequin, maybe?

Cerise cartoon-bee-talked for a minute, and Toot-Toot frowned a little, then said, "Next he went over there—" Cerise pointed at a little alcove in a building near the halfway point of the alley, but closer to the end Charity would have come from. "—and he stood there and looked at something on the end of a stick." Toot didn't wait for me to ask, he simply said, "How big was the stick, Cerise, and how big was what was on the end of it?"

Cerise seemed to consider, then pointed at one of Toot's arms, spoke some more, then flew to my hand (I was stroking my chin and thinking) and tapped my thumbnail. I thought about that for a moment, and didn't get anything.

"Oh!" Buffy said, perking up suddenly. "Cerise? Was the thing on the end shiny? Reflective?"

Cerise squeed a happy sound and nodded so hard that she bobbed up and down several inches in the air.

"A dental mirror, Harry," Buffy said. "He used it to look around the corner. Robin Wood taught a lot of slayers that trick— it's really useful."

"Right, good thinking— thank you." I turned back to Toot and Cerise and said, "This is helping a lot, thank you both. What happened then?"

Cerise spoke for most of a minute, then fell quiet and moved to sit on Toot's shoulder, almost behind his head.

"After that, the man stood there for a minute or two," Toot translated, "and when the woman in the picture came into sight at the end of the alley, he did something with his other hand, in his pocket, and there was a little bang from the van. The thing holding it up in back broke and it fell on the big doll. The woman dropped her things and ran that way. When she got next to him, the man stepped out, grabbed her, and— and he held her for a second, then took a knife from behind his back and… and he stabbed the woman.

"Cerise left then, Harry, because we all know that the city guards come in big bunches when one of your people gets killed. She says she's sorry, and that she hoped that this helped at least a little."

"She has nothing to be sorry for," I said, my voice firm but gentle. "You helped, Cerise, and I am in your debt."

Cerise's eyes went wide, and she asked a question of Toot, who looked at me and asked, "Can she join the Guard, Harry? She'd like that, she almost never gets any pizza."

"If you'll do me the favor of admitting her, General," I said, "then she is certainly welcome. In fact— well, when we leave, why don't you two come with us, and I'll see that you get a small pizza just for the two of you."

Toot whooped in glee and said, "Yes, my lord!"

Cerise flew closer to me than she'd yet dared, and I felt a brush of tiny lips on my cheek.

I blushed only when three voices behind me said in perfect harmony, "Awwwwww!"

"Okay, now, before we go," I said, "was there anything odd about the man that you can tell us, Cerise? What color was his hair before he put the false hair over it?"

Cerise buzz-squeaked, then touched the back of her arm, midway between elbow and wrist, and Toot said, "His real hair was dark orange, and he had lots of little orange and red spots on his face. Cerise thought he was covering those with the dirt off the wheels. The fake hair was gray. And on the back of one arm, his knife arm, she saw part of a picture when his sleeve rode up some. It looked like a skull with a hat on. A green hat."

"Oh-kay, that's helpful." I thought for a moment, then asked, "What about the van? What color was it? Was there anything odd about it?"

Cerise thought for a moment, then spoke, and Toot translated, "It was black, and it had a picture on the back doors of a big, burning eye." Cerise spoke again, and Toot said, "No, an eye made of fire."

I suddenly grinned, and said, "Ah-ha! Cerise, thank you! That was amazingly helpful! What do you like on your pizza!"

Toot translated, said that her choices sounded fine to him, and I had Buffy call an order into Pizza 'Spress. We let Toot and Cerise ride on the dashboard and radio antenna respectively (Cerise was still too nervous about humans to ride inside the car) on the way to the restaurant. We left them in the alley behind the place, devouring a personal-sized Meat-Madness pizza with extra cheese, and I headed for the building that housed the offices of Chicago PD's Special Investigations Division.

"Okay, so we have a redheaded guy with freckles," Buffy said from the back seat as we drove. "Also, he set up for the kill, and it was pretty elaborate. And a tattoo on his knife arm, whichever that was."

"Probably his left," Sanya rumbled darkly. "If he had time to take his knife out from behind his back, he probably had Charity from behind, and she was stabbed in the heart, Harry said."

"I don't like this at all," Carlos said, and in the rearview mirror I saw him shake his head. "This sounds a lot like this guy was going after Charity in particular."

"How'd he know she'd be at that store, though?" Buffy asked.

"She stopped there every other weekday," I said quietly. "Michael told the cops as much. They go through a lot of milk, and she stops there for more on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays."

"So this… could have been an assassination, not a random crazy?" Carlos said, anger making his voice cold and precise. "Harry, is that what you think?"

"I don't know, Carlos," I said honestly. "It could've been a crazy, but one who's organized, who chooses his victims, stalks them, hunts them. I've seen weirder from crazy guys.

"Still… the van, the jack rigged to break, probably with a small explosive charge, and the mannequin under it? That's an awful lot of preparation. And it… look, Chicago isn't perfect, and neither are its people. A lot of people here would've just… gone on. Not wanted to get involved. Even if this guy stalked Charity for a while, how could he know she wouldn't do that?"

"They're regular church-goers," Carlos said slowly. "I realize that doesn't mean much to some people, but they live their beliefs, man."

"Good point," I admitted. I sighed, shook my head and said, "I'm not sure that you could get that from following her, especially since Michael said that she hadn't mentioned anyone following her, and he hadn't noticed anything. But honestly, this feels… too planned. Too precise. If there's another killing, it'll make me relax a little— _dammit,_ I hate even saying that!

"But if there are more killings like this? It'll leave me worrying less about Michael and the rest of his family."

"Yes," Sanya said from beside me. "I hate that feeling too, Dresden— but I share it."

"We all do, on both counts," Buffy said, and met my eyes for a second in the rearview. "But either way… we can maybe help some. Well, Harry can."

"The little folk can," I corrected. "I'm just their mouthpiece."

We arrived at the slightly rundown building that housed the CPD's Special Investigations Division, and Sanya and Carlos agreed to wait with Captain Midnight while Buffy and I went in to talk to Rawlins, or Stallings if he was there.

To my complete lack of surprise, Rawlins and Stallings were both in, and Rawlins followed us into Stallings's office. Since Rawlins was well and truly in the know, and Stallings as well, I told them where I'd gotten my information, as well as the one other bit that Cerise had given us, that the killer was maybe half a head taller than Charity, about six-two-or-three.

"A black van with a fiery eye on the back?" Rawlins snorted. "There can't be too many of those. Who roots for Sauron anyway?"

I stared at him for a moment, and Rawlins rolled his eyes. "Oh, come on, Dresden— I saw the movies. Didn't everybody?"

"We'll get this out there," Stallings said, running a hand back over his hair. "I don't like how this is sounding, though. Awfully organized and planned… usually, the ones who carve so-called magic symbols into their victims aren't this organized."

"Yeah," I said glumly. "I hate it, but…."

"But part of you's hoping there's another killing so that it stops looking like someone's targeted your friend," Stallings said, and nodded at the immediate guilty expression that washed over my face. "Only human, Dresden. Only human, man.

"Listen, if we get another killing, can I call you? Have you look it over, just to be sure the guy stays in the land of so-called magic, doesn't cross into the real deal?"

"You can call me," I said, nodding. "But only if you let me work pro bono. This is really personal, I won't take money for it."

"Deal," Stallings said, and offered me his hand.

I shook, and Buffy and I got out of there.

We went back to Michael's— it was late, but he was still up, talking to Molly, his mother, and Murphy. When we went in, Molly looked at me and asked, "Did you learn anything?"

"We did," I said, looking back and forth between her and Michael. "Just… what he looked like, some of what happened. It's… I don't think it would help either of you to hear it, honestly."

Molly opened her mouth to protest, and Michael lay his hand on hers, silencing her. "Harry's right, Molly," he said gently. "It won't make us feel better."

"Okay," Molly said, sounding frustrated. Then she visibly took control of herself and said, "Oh. Harry? About that apartment offer? I'm going to be moving back home for a while, so… thank you, but not right now? Dad and the Jawas need me."

"Okay, Molly," I said, nodding. "That's… well, I'm glad. Maggie being a Jawa, these days, I'm very glad."

"Thanks, boss," Molly said, and came over to hug me.

We didn't stay much longer— but Michael hugged and thanked each of us before we left. That man… amazes me. His wife had died that morning, and here he was thanking all of us for caring and helping, smiling his thanks, even.

I count myself lucky that he calls me his friend.

We all agreed to come back the next day— the kids weren't going to school, and Michael would need to go out and make funeral arrangements at some point, so extra people would be good— and went to our various homes. I put Carlos up in my guest room for the duration, for which he was grateful, and Sanya, of course, stayed with Michael and his family.

Murphy took Buffy, Dawn, Xander, Carlos and I home, and got out to hug everyone goodnight before she left— even me. Seems that I'd been let off the hook a little early— and I was grateful. Losing a friend is hard, and having Karrin acting like my friend again made it easier.

We all went inside, and eventually to sleep.

I woke up to the phone ringing at a quarter to seven, and managed to roll over and grab it without falling out of bed. "Mmph."

"Dresden?" came Stallings's voice. "That you?"

"Yeah," I said, slowly prying my eyes open. "What time is it?"

"Six forty-six," Stallings said. "Sorry to wake you— but we've got another one."

That woke me up instantly. "Crap. Okay. Where?"

"I can send Rawlins, if you want," Stallings said.

"No, I may want my own wheels," I said. "Tell me where, give me time for coffee and I'll be there."

"No need to hurry that much, forensics will be another hour at least," Stallings said. "I just wanted you to have time to wake up first."

"Okay, yeah," I sighed. "Thanks for that. Now, address?"

Stallings gave me an address in Chicago proper, near the waterfront, and I scribbled it down, told him I'd be there in an hour or so, and got up.

Carlos was in the doorway of my room, wearing sweatpants and a bleary expression. "Got something?"

"Another killing," I said, stretching. "I'm gonna shower— the hot water heater is freaking huge, so if you want to use the one in the other bathroom, that's cool."

"Thank god for big water heaters," Carlos said, and nodded. "Can I come with you to the scene?"

"To the scene, yes," I said as I reached into my closet for clean clothes to put on after I was clean myself. "You may have to wait outside the tape— Stallings and Rawlins don't know you the way the do me. They might not have let Buffy past the tape yesterday, but… well, she followed me when I ran after I heard Charity's name."

"Got it," Carlos said. "First one out of the shower starts coffee?"

"Good deal," I agreed. Carlos strode off to the guest bathroom, I started for mine— then stopped and sat down on the bed, grabbed the phone.

Buffy answered on the first ring with an alert "Hello, Harry. Do we have another killing?"

"Yeah," I said, remembering that she had one of those things on her phone that told her who was calling. (That sounded neat, but I'd sure as hell fry one in maybe ten seconds.) "I told Stallings I'd be there in about an hour, means leaving on forty-five or fifty minutes. You in?"

"Bet on it," she said. "I've already showered, want me to call Karrin?"

"Yeah, thanks," I said. "See you in a bit."

I showered, shaved, and dressed, figured by the smell of coffee that Carlos had beaten me to the kitchen, and went that way gladly.

"How'd you get ready so fast?" I asked as I wandered into the kitchen to find Carlos at the table with a cup of coffee from my old-fashioned percolator.

"My Hispanic heritage has insured that I don't have to shave as often as European barbarians," Carlos said loftily. Then he sighed and said, "It comes in slow— but patchy. I look like a thug if I go more than three days without shaving."

We both scarfed down some cereal and toast— Carlos can cook, but we didn't want to take the time— and went down to collect Buffy. When we reached the ground level, Murphy was waiting for us, sitting in the lobby with a Styrofoam cup of coffee.

We all got into Captain Midnight and went to the scene of the most recent killing by our peculiarly prepared serial killer. This one was again in an alley, this time between two warehouses in the Iroquois Landing port facility. Forensics finished up maybe five minutes after we got there, and Stallings let Buffy and I go in, offered to let Murph go in, but she instead stayed and talked to him about the investigation.

This one was a lot like the first one, the big difference being I didn't know the lady in question— but she was a tall, well-built woman, had probably been very attractive in life. Her hair was a lighter blond than Charity's had been, and she seemed to be in slightly better physical shape than what Charity had been when she died (though not a patch on the Charity I remembered from her days as Michael's armorer and sparring partner). Like Charity, she had been stabbed neatly in the heart, and carved on post-mortem. The symbols were mostly the same, a couple of minor differences that I noted for later study, and this time, I was able to look more closely than I had at my friend's wife. I could see that the hand that had carved her had been both steady and exacting, and that… bugged me.

"This ain't making a lot of sense," Rawlins said from behind me. "Serial killers with this sort of organization? They don't kill this damned often. They kill this often, they're not careful, they're reckless, nearing burnout."

"Yeah," Buffy said, nodding. "But the rest sort of fits. Same body type, within a few years of the same age— do you have that, yet?"

"Yeah," Rawlins sighed. "Lady was Felicia Watson, age thirty-five. Married, three kids."

"Dammit," I muttered. "This is… let me make sure, but it looks like more of the same."

I activated my Sight, and looked around— there were no traces of magic use in the area, but I did see something amazing.

This time, I turned far enough to see Buffy with my wizard's Sight— and I had to fight not to simply stare.

She _burned._ The form I saw was Buffy, looking as gorgeous as my admittedly biased self thought she always was— but there were flames surrounding her, inside of her, flames that burned black at the core of her (probably because of the darkness of the original slayer power), but lightened quickly, became purest white before they ever reached her skin. And in those flames, I saw thousands of years of magical power, passed from girl to girl, slayer to slayer. I even saw the slayers themselves, forms made of flame, flickering rapidly from one to the next, like riffling the pages of a catalogue of young women.

But Buffy shone more brightly than all of them, burned and glowed, power waiting to be used, and personality that loved the power, the ability to save lives, to be in the thick of it when things went wrong. I saw experience that had never been held by one slayer before, because no slayer had ever before survived for fifteen years.

"Whoa," I said aloud— then I managed to shut off the Sight and look away from Buffy before I embarrassed myself. Much, anyway.

"Dresden?" Rawlins asked aloud.

"Nothing," I said, shaking my head. "No magic was used here."

"Oh," Rawlins said, sounding disappointed. "All right, so this is a rule-breakin'-wannabe-wizardin'-atypical-asshole. Damn, that makes it harder."

I nodded agreement, then sighed and said, "Okay, well— I think we'll take off, Rawlins. I can be reached at the Carpenters' today, if you guys need me."

"Kinda figured that," Rawlins said, waving at the ambulance attendants to come and take the body away. "How are they doin'?"

"Better than they have any right to be," I said. "Thank god."

"I hear you." Rawlins sighed and looked at the remains of Felicia Watson. "If we get a third…."

"Call me," I said, nodding. "He could give up on the Necronomicon, maybe switch to something that will work."

"I hope to hell that don't happen," Rawlins said as I jerked my head at Buffy and started back toward the police lines. "Thanks, Dresden."

As Buffy walked beside me back to the police lines, she took my hand, carefully, avoiding the blisters on my fingers. "You looked at me with that magic-vision thing, didn't you?"

"Yeah," I said, blushing a little. "Not on purpose— but that's one of those things I'll _like_ remembering, Buffy. Seeing you that way, with the slayer power in you, part of you— and _owned_ by you? Pretty damned awesome."

"Oh," she said, and now it was her turn to blush. "Thank you."

"You're welcome," I said— and lifted the police tape for her.

As we went over to Stallings and Murphy, I saw Karrin glance our way, saw her eyes bounce down to our joined hands, then deliberately up to my eyes. I met her eyes, and when she gave me the tiniest raise of her eyebrow, I gave her the tiniest of shrugs to indicate that it wasn't any big deal— yet. She hesitated, then nodded a tiny nod at me, and let it go.

See? I can so communicate with a woman!

We left the crime scene, went to a diner and got coffee and a light second breakfast, and I filled Carlos and Karrin in on the massive amounts of nothing that I'd learned. Murphy, like Rawlins before her, bemoaned the lack of sense that this killer made, seemingly operating from both ends of the serial killer spectrum at once. Then she explained it all to Carlos, who had less experience with the mundane sort of killers than the rest of us.

Some breakfast conversation, right?

We spent the day at Michael's, and not much happened. Michael got the funeral arrangements made, and… well, I found myself misting up when he asked me to be one of the pallbearers. I agreed, of course, as did Sanya and Xander. The other three would be Michael's best foreman, who had, with his wife, gotten very close to Michael and Charity in the years since Michael had given up being a Knight of the Sword— and Daniel and Matthew, their two oldest boys.

Charity's visitation would be the following evening at the funeral home, and the funeral would be held at St. Mary of the Angels, with a graveside service at Rosehill Cemetery, where Charity would be buried.

We stayed until about eight o'clock that night, left then because the little ones were already in bed, and the older kids and Michael were plainly feeling sleepy, none of them having slept well the night before.

At the brownstone, I invited everyone up to my place for a while, and everyone agreed, even Murphy. We sat around and talked, mostly about light subjects, until around nine-thirty in the evening, when something crashed loudly downstairs, loudly enough that we heard it clearly.

I didn't hesitate, and I used my command voice. "Carlos, Buffy, with me. Murphy, I want you to go outside from the apartment entrance and come in behind who-or-whatever.

"Xander, you and Dawn stay here— this place is warded, yours aren't."

"Hey, no, we can—"

"You can sit here," I snapped. "I don't know what this is, and you two don't have any experience with monsters here."

"He's right," Buffy said, nodding. "I got stupid my first night out with him and got hit because of it— but I can take it. You don't have the slayer power, guys."

Xander deflated, nodded dejectedly, and sat down next to Dawn.

I went first, staff in my hands, blasting rod in its place inside my duster, headed down the back stairs, which led to a door into the offices, while Murphy took the main stairs down to the street entrance to the apartments. Buffy came after me, Carlos brought up the rear, and I opened the door into the office and sprang in to give them room to move.

I saw what was waiting for me, and I got my shield bracelet activated in time to save my own stupid life.

There were three plainly-dead bodies moving around in the lobby part of Dresden Investigation Services, moving easily and confidently. One of them, a female, had apparently been coming to the door to see where it led, and I almost slammed into her.

She appeared to be a _dry_ corpse, which told me that she'd been a vampire of the Black Court for a while, and wouldn't be subject to stupid mistakes— unlike a certain wizard, who shall remain nameless.

I got my shield up, formed a slightly curved disc as tall as I am, and got it between me and the vamp as she swung. That she'd been surprised is probably all that kept me from being slammed straight back into Buffy when the vamp hit my shield and I wasn't braced. Instead, I flew back at an angle, hit the back wall next to the door to the small janitor's closet there. I hit butt-first, then back and legs, then shoulders, and, finally, my head hit the wall. I sank slightly into the drywall, and it more or less held me up as I tried to gather my wits.

Buffy, since she hadn't thought to go grab the Scythe, immediately leapt forward and kicked the Black Court bitch who'd hammered me, knocking the undead thing back through the massive front window that they'd broken to gain admittance.

Carlos, in the meantime, went straight to full offense, pointing one hand at a vampire that had started charging him and snarling something in a guttural language I didn't know. Green light streaked from his hand and spread out into… a five-foot tall, turned-on-a-corner tic-tac-toe grid? What the hell—?

The vampire ran into the grid, despite trying to brake at the last minute— and it fell to the ground in pieces, sliced apart on the lines of the grid, and I understood— Carlos hadn't trusted himself to aim well at a creature that could move with blinding speed, so had let the creature run into the magic.

Smooth.

Then the third vampire, also male, and obviously once a large and muscular man, picked up the small couch in the middle of the lobby, and threw it side-armed at Carlos.

The couch hit my friend and fellow Warden across the chest, and slammed him into the wall left of the door to the stairs. He slumped to the ground, unmoving— which left Buffy against two Black Court vampires all by herself.

No, she had Murphy for backup— but Murph's gun-and-martial-arts skills wouldn't mean dick to these things.

So I had to pull myself together, and never mind that I felt like I'd just gone ten rounds with three big trolls, the Hulk and Superman.

I managed to force my shoulders back and myself out of the depression in the drywall as the vampire who'd just put Carlos down blurred towards Buffy. She saw him coming, gauged his intentions— and threw herself into a sort of a cartwheel, managed to spin out of his way. He stopped—

— and I leveled my staff at him and bellowed _"FORZARÉ!"_ at the top of my lungs.

The bolt of force from my staff caught the vampire in the ribs, to the left of his heart, and sent him flying into the wall between the doors to Buffy's and Karrin's offices. He hit hard enough to shake the building— and I grinned.

Until he pushed off the wall, grabbed an easy chair and threw it at me with all of his not-inconsiderable strength.

Thank god it was an overstuffed chair. I got my shield up, and I managed to deflect the thing up— but it bounced off of the wall behind me and landed on my freaking _head_. That didn't do a lot of damage, most of its velocity was gone, but it did knock me to the ground, even as I saw the female vampire climbing back in the window Buffy had knocked her out through.

This was not going well.

I heard gunshots, steady and measured, and saw the female vampire stagger a tiny bit, then simply walk on, heading for me as the male headed for Buffy.

I did not want to throw fire around in here— I have a bad track record with fire and buildings, and burning down my own building struck me as particularly stupid— so I leveled my staff at the female and cried, _"Ventas servitas!_"

A blast of wind erupted from my staff and staggered the female backwards two steps, three—

Something hit me in the head, hard enough to hurt, despite whatever-it-was being soft, and I lost my concentration. I glanced down to see the ordinary _pillow_ that the male vampire had tossed at me hard enough to both hurt and disorient me— while fighting Buffy, even— and when I looked back up, the female vampire was standing over me, her mouth curved in a sickening smile as she bent towards me— and I couldn't move well, between the chair laying half-leaning on me and the fuzziness in my head.

"My mistress sends greetings, wizard," the thing hissed as it reached for my throat.

I couldn't think of a way to stop it, and Buffy had her own battle, was barely staying ahead of the male vampire, couldn't take the time to come to my aid.

The vampire grabbed my hair with one hand, my shoulder with the other—

— and white light, a light so bright that it _hurt,_ filled the world.

I heard screaming, and wondered if it was me.


	19. Chapter 19

_Interlude:_

A part of her very much wanted to investigate the Carpenter woman's death, but that… wasn't a good idea. Sure, she had some idea of how to go about it, but still— bad idea on more than one level. She might run into _him_— what she knew about investigating crimes, she'd learned from him, after all— or, if the hunch she'd formed was right… she might reveal herself too soon to those against whom she sought revenge.

She hadn't decided to give up on the alternative offered her by the man who'd bought her breakfast, but she had decided to proceed with her plans to revenge herself on those who had wronged her— and never mind that they might not think that they had done her any wrong.

_They would have denied me the right to exist, to __**be,**__ to be free and… and to be __**forgiven,**_ she thought, her anger growing as it always did when she allowed herself to think of them. _They would have denied me the right to be loved, and to love back._

_For that… even for a chance at grace, I do not know if I can forgive them for that_.

She decided to stay out of it, for the moment. Better that way, better to leave her enemies and _him_ in the dark, for if _he_ knew about her presence, the enemy might learn of it, just from his behavior.

But the visitation and funeral… she might want to not so much _attend_ as _observe_. If this was what she suspected, then the enemy might not be able to resist seeing how they had wrought….

She'd have to be careful. Very, very careful. She was almost certainly of a magical strength to be a Warden of the White Council of wizards, and she had magical knowledge that few had, but she had no illusions about being able to stand up to the enemy in a straight fight, especially if there were more than one of them. No, for that, she would need allies, preparation, more preparation— and a lot of luck.

_Veils will not be enough,_ she thought. _I will need something more, something to mark me as insignificant even as humans go_….

She thought for a while, considered and discarded several possible alternatives… and hit on one that might well work.

After some thought, she decided on the things she would need, and she left her hotel to begin gathering them.

_This will be dangerous,_ she thought as she headed for the more questionable parts of town, the better to buy the things needed for her disguise. _But if I am right… they will not be able to stay away. They will need to see._

_And if I see them, I will know that I am right, and they are responsible, however indirectly._

_I will find a way to let __**him**__ know, if this is the case. And then I will… see what comes, and when I might best reveal myself_.

She smiled a little as she strolled along, looking for a thrift store, or a Salvation Army store— someplace where she could buy at least the clothes she'd need for her disguise.

_Harry:_

For a moment, the brilliant white light and screaming filled my brain, and I couldn't figure out what was going on— then I realized that the female Black Court vampire had let go of me, and that it was the one doing the screaming.

I slitted my eyes, and managed to see the vampire bitch that had been about to kill me backpedaling furiously, and when I turned my head I saw that the male vampire who'd been fighting Buffy was doing the same thing— and I figured it out.

Murphy had realized that her gun wasn't going to be a lot of help, and had gone back into my apartment after _Fidelacchius,_ the sword of Faith, that she had used twice in battle already. She must have sprinted like mad to get the Sword and get down here this fast. Go Murph!

Then I saw Karrin _on the street,_ staring into the office through the broken window, her eyes locked on something behind me and to my left, her face filled with an expression of wonder.

I looked over my shoulder— and understood.

Stepping out of the elevator, a look of amazed determination on his face, was Xander, and he had a sword in his hand, a sword that blazed with a brilliant white light that was visibly burning the two vampires.

Xander had _Amoracchius_ in his hand, and it had shrunk, changed itself to a weapon he was more comfortable with. (This didn't surprise me; when I'd first seen Michael with _Amoracchius_, it was the size of a two-handed claymore, five feet from tip to hilt. Later, it had shortened, somehow, as Michael changed how he used it, until the last time he'd used it, on the island that I'd later named Demonreach, it had been closer to three and a half feet long.)

Xander stepped forward, _Amoracchius_ held up before him, the blade out at a forty-five degree angle. His feet moved forward in a step that was almost a glide, and he seemed almost to drift forward as he moved to a point equidistant between the two retreating vampires, his head turned to account for his missing eye, but a calm expression on his face.

It was a lot like watching Michael, back in the day— and I found myself smiling.

In the light of the sword, I saw things I'd never noticed about Xander before. He had muscle that I'd never noticed, a chest nearly as powerful as Michael's had once been, and his face had lines that added character and strength to it. He looked… like someone to be reckoned with.

"Buffy, keep them in here, Dawn's bringing the Scythe," Xander said, stepping past me with a glance down my way. "You okay, Harry?"

"I am now," I sighed as Xander stalked towards the female vampire. "Finish these things, would you? You don't need to wait for Dawn to bring Buffy her weapon."

Xander looked down at me in surprise, then at the sword in his hand— its light didn't seem to have any effect on his vision at all, he didn't squint or anything. "I… guess I don't."

Xander raised his head to look at the female vampire as she backed towards the window and exit, smoke rising from her skin.

"Karrin?" Xander called, "Can you slow them down?"

Murphy stared at Xander uncomprehendingly for a moment, then started and said, "Oh! I guess I can, yes."

With that, Karrin Murphy holstered her weapon, reached to the open throat of her blouse, and pulled out a crucifix— which promptly blazed into light and pinned the retreating vamps in place.

"Behead them, Xander," I called as he started forward. "It'll be fastest."

"Got it," Xander said, and he moved forward, staying cautious, not rushing in. He kept the slender bar of white light that I knew was _Amoracchius_ up before him, and when the vampire turned to flee, to charge at Karrin and the presumably lesser threat of her and her crucifix, Xander took a long step after the monster, swept the holy sword forward— and beheaded the vampire in a single, neat stroke. The corpse fell and started crumbling away to dust immediately—

—and the male vampire snarled and charged Xander at a dead run.

It seemed surprised when Xander turned to meet it and neatly extended the blade for the vampire to run onto.

That's the thing about the Swords of the Cross; they level the playing field. The vampire's incredible speed had been completely negated by _Amoracchius,_ and Xander was, it seemed, quicker than the dead guy had been. He placed the sword right, braced himself, and the vampire drove the holy blade through its own heart, and dissolved to dust before Xander could even pull the blade free.

The light of the blade dwindled, and left Xander standing there, holding a longsword with a big nail worked into its hilt, the sheathe, apparently forgotten, in his other hand. Even the sheathe had resized itself, shrunk to fit the blade as it was now.

"What… just happened?" Xander asked, looking a little confused.

"Oh, come on," I said, rolling my eyes as I struggled to my feet. "I think that's kind of obvious, Xander."

"Obvious to you, maybe, but not so much to me," Xander said. He lifted the sword before him and said, "This thing was a lot bigger and heavier a couple of minutes ago, Harry. How's that work?"

"I'm guessing that, since you're the new wielder, the sword changed to a form you're more comfortable with," I said, dusting myself off as he sheathed the sword. "I mean, when I first saw it, it was about five feet long. It shrank some over the years, and—"

"Wait, 'new wielder,' huh?" Xander said. "Harry, new wielder of _what?"_

I got it, then. Xander hadn't put it together, didn't realize… well, wait, the books he'd read hadn't gone that far, he'd only heard me tell it, and maybe that hadn't sunk in so well….

Karrin had stepped in through the window, and Buffy had gone over to check on Carlos, who was apparently conscious, and trying to push the couch off of himself.

I saw Karrin open her mouth and I said, "Let me, please?"

Murphy nodded at me, looking amused. Carlos came over and stood next to Xander, offered his hand and said, "Thanks, man. You saved our asses, there."

"You're welcome," Xander said automatically. Then he shook his head and said, "I just wish I understood how I did it."

"Xander, tell me what happened, what you did from when we left," I said. "Please."

Xander sighed, dry-scrubbed his face with his free hand. "Okay, well, Dawn and I were gonna do like you said, but then something shook the whole _building,_ and we figured it had to be a case of 'that's not a good sign,' and I sent her down for Buffy's— and there she is, hi, Dawn."

Dawn popped out of the elevator, holding the case for the Scythe and looking nervous. "Is everyone okay?" she asked as she handed Buffy the case.

"We're fine," Buffy said, setting the case down at her feet. "Xander saved us. Harry's going to explain how after Xander tells his side of things. Or else Harry's going to get his butt kicked."

"No threats from you, minion," I said loftily— and cowered over behind Xander when Buffy raised an eyebrow at me. "Go on, Xander."

"So the building shook— what was that, anyway?"

"I slammed a vampire into a load-bearing wall, really hard," I said, and grinned. "Go on."

"I sent Dawn for the Scythe, and I looked for a weapon to use for myself in your umbrella stand," he said. "I thought about your practice staff, but decided on a sword. I wasn't about to take Shiro's sword, I'm not that good of a guy, so that left the sword cane and the big broadsword. I wanted some weight on my side, so I went with the broadsword. Then I got down here, the elevator opened, I drew the sword— and there was a huge white light. The sword shrunk down, now it feels like my favorite bastard sword, which got broken… about a year before we left our Earth. Remember, Buff? Those rock-demons in Wales?"

"I remember," Buffy said— then looked pointedly at me.

"Xander," I said slowly, "do you remember what happened to Michael's sword when his injuries forced him to retire?"

"Uh, I know you told me— oh, wait, he gave it to you, too," Xander said, nodding. "Yeah, I forgot that, why do you— ohmygod!"

"Uh-huh," I said, nodding and smiling at him. "You seem to have been offered a job, guy.

"Oh— hey, I have a theory about something. Do you know if you have any royalty in your ancestry?"

"Well, my mom always said that her side of the family was descended from one of the bastards that Charles II of England _didn't_ get around to acknowledging, but I never bought into it," Xander said, staring at the sword in his hand. "Why do you…?"

"Blood of kings, man," I said, nodding. "Your mom was probably right."

"Harry… I can't be the right guy for this!" Xander said, shaking his head. "I mean—"

"God apparently feels differently," I said gently.

"And I'm pretty sure he's right," Carlos said with a nod. "I mean, he is _God,_ you know?"

"Yeah, but— I don't— this is… _Amoracchius,_ right?" he asked. I nodded, and he said, "Look, I believe in god, I know he's out there and he's on our side, sure, but I'm not _religious,_ and I don't know what right I have to go packing around the freaking Sword of Love! This is—"

"Oh, man," I interrupted, my voice on the edge of laughter. I spread my arms as wide as I could, inhaled as deeply as I could, closed my eyes and exhaled slowly, letting the exhale become a chuckle. I did it again, more slowly, and this time said, "Aaaaah!" as I exhaled. "Oh, man, this is… this is _nice!"_

"Harry?" Buffy said cautiously. "Harry, what's nice? What are you doing?"

"Ssh!" I said, a little chuckle behind the noise. "I'm _savoring,_ Buffy. I rarely get a chance at this sort of thing, and I'm _savoring_ it!"

"What sort of thing is that, Dresden?" Murphy asked, her voice less cautious, more amused.

"Paybacks," I said, smiling and opening my eyes. "Paybacks this good? That's got to be _savored_."

"Oh, crap, here we go," Carlos said, covering his eyes as though in terror.

I looked at Xander, and I let my features turn into a scowl of sorts, though I was so busy trying not to grin that it probably wasn't much of one.

"So let me get this straight," I said, giving Xander the hardest look I could. "You don't think that you're worthy of the Sword of Love, is that right?"

"Well, yeah," Xander said, shaking his head. "I mean, it's not like I—"

"It's not like you what?" I asked. "It's not like you spent the last thirteen years or so going into dangerous situation after dangerous situation, just because people you cared about were going in, and you couldn't make yourself let them go alone?

"It's not like you risked a violent, painful death time after time because you wouldn't let your friends, the people you love, face it alone?

"It's not like you saved your freaking _world_ by refusing to stop loving your oldest friend, refused to stop _telling_ her you loved her, even while she was trying to end the world?

"It's not like you grabbed on to the best friend you ever had and hung on for dear life because you loved her too much to let her face whatever happened next alone?

"And if you try to tell me that you didn't think that there was a chance that going through that portal, the one that sucked up all the magic on your Earth, wouldn't just kill you deader than hell, that you didn't at least consider that you were following your best friend to your deaths, just because you loved her? I'm going to call you a liar to your face.

"Everything you've done as an adult you did for the sake of other people— _people you love_.

"And if you think that's not enough to qualify you to use that sword to defend the people of this world from the monsters that would ruin their lives, kill them, destroy their lives and families?

"Then you, my friend, are even dumber than you recently accused me of being!"

Xander simply stared at me for a moment, his mouth slightly open, an amazed expression on his face.

"I hate to say it," Carlos said, smirking at me, "but Harry's right, man."

"Word," Murphy said, and nodded at me.

"Go, Harry," Buffy said, and stepped forward to bounce up and kiss Xander on the cheek.

"Damn straight," Dawn said, and kissed his other cheek.

"Uh," Xander said, looking around and blushing deeply. "Well, I— I mean, you— I… okay. Okay, if that's…." Xander took a deep breath, closed his eye, held that breath for a moment, then opened his eye, looked upwards and said, very, very softly, "Thank you."

Then Xander looked at me and said, "What happens next?"

"Well, you should probably think about this a little bit," I said, "because Michael's the first Knight of the Cross in a long time to be able to retire. Mostly, the Knights die in the line of duty."

"Same for Slayers," Xander said, nodding. "I've had some really good examples on that front— I'm game."

At that, Buffy stepped forward and hugged Xander tightly and held on for a moment.

"Hey, check it out," Xander said when she let go. "Buffy— if I go to back you up again, it might be a case of 'equal footing,' which I never thought would happen."

"So?" Buffy smiled at him wickedly, and said, "Try this one on for size, Xander Harris, Knight of the Cross; I may finally get to repay some of the zillion times you've backed me up down the years… by backing _you_ up!"

Xander blinked in pure shock— and slowly, he grinned. "Wow. That's… I don't know if it's more scary or more incredibly cool— but it's _definitely_ both of those things."

"Can't argue," Buffy said. Then she looked at me and asked, "Harry, what was that attack all about? Why were those vampires here?"

"That," I sighed, "was about me being a dummy. I'm off my game, I guess."

"Is your game in Cuernavaca?" Buffy asked brightly. "Mine went there once."

"And it didn't even take her along," Dawn snickered.

I snorted a little laugh and said, "Yeah, I remember. Your eighteenth birthday and that test the Watchers' Council gave you.

"No, my game didn't go that far— it just went far enough for me not to realize that killing the vampires guarding Gavrilovic, and the gargoyle killing him? That probably sort of tipped off Mavra that I'm back.

"I'm an idiot, I admit it."

"Well, so long as you admit it," Carlos said, grinning— until Murphy elbowed him in the ribs.

"Don't feel too bad, Harry," Murphy said, shaking her head. "I didn't think of it either."

"Me either," Buffy said, smacking her own forehead. "So no putting yourself down, Harry."

"Changes the gameplan," I said, shaking my head. "Not like it matters— I'm not going to want to go after her until after Charity's funeral anyway."

"That's understandable," Murphy said, and squeezed my arm.

"Okay, now," I said, sighing. "Xander who can I call at this time of night about getting the window either repaired or boarded up?"

"Uh, I know a place that will bring a window over now," Xander said after a moment's thought. "But they charge an arm and a leg."

"I can afford it," I said, and nodded towards my office. "You want to call them? Phone book's in the middle left drawer, and you'll know what to say."

Xander nodded, said, "I should measure it first," and headed for the elevator. He stopped in front of it and looked at the sword in his hand. "Uh, should I… hang on to this, or should you keep it?"

"You've been chosen to wield it, and accepted the burden," I said solemnly. "It's yours now, Xander."

"Right," he said, and stepped into the elevator.

Once he was gone, all three women turned to look at me, and almost with one voice, ask, "When did Xander accuse you of being dumb, and why?"

Oops.

"Ah, that was… well, it was a guy thing," I said, blushing. "I'd be tossed out of the union if I told you."

I could feel all three of them glaring at me, then Dawn suddenly said, "Oh! Uh, yeah. Right. Guy thing. I get it, totally."

What the hell…? Did she know that— of course she knew that Buffy had… feelings for me. The little sister always knows things like that. I gave her a playful glare, and she said, hurriedly, "I'll get Xander's shop vac and get up that glass."

As Dawn headed for the elevator, Buffy rounded on me and said, "Harry Dresden, you need to tell me what I'm missing— I get violent when I'm missing something, and people won't tell me what it is that I'm missing."

"You should probably just give this one up, Buffy," Karrin said, giving me a sidelong look that spoke _volumes_ about how much I owed her for this. "Harry and 'guy things' are a hopeless situation. He won't talk. He takes the whole thing too seriously, but it's too late to fix it at this late date."

"I could try tickling him…." Buffy looked thoughtfully at me, watched me squirm a little, then said decisively, "Ribs. Definitely ticklish around the ribs."

"Hey!" I protested. "Now, I'm the wizard here, so where do you get off pulling information like that out of the air!"

"It's a slayer thing," she said smugly. Then she threw her hands up in the air, stepped in front of me, and looked up into my face. "I'll let you off the hook— this time. Because of what you said to Xander. Harry… that was everything he needed to hear. Thank you."

At which point, Buffy bounced up on her toes and gave me a peck on the lips… which was way, way nicer than a mere peck on the lips should have been, really.

"Uh," I said after a moment. "You don't have to thank me— I just told the truth. But you're welcome anyway, just— no tickling!"

"No tickling," Buffy sighed, and pouted. Which was cute.

Carlos and Karrin looked at the two of us and both opened their mouths to say something— but the elevator dinged, and Xander came out with a tape measure and a notepad, and Murphy shut her mouth and shook her head, looking amused. Carlos gave me a raised eyebrow, and looked smug— until I mouthed the word "virgin" at him, at which point he scowled and went to hold the tape measure for Xander. Then Dawn arrived with the shop vacuum and the rest of us moved to help clean up the mess.

It was a little after midnight when the glaziers left, but my front window was restored. Only Xander and I were still up, Murphy had left after the glaziers got to the office, and Carlos, Buffy and Dawn had gone off to their various beds an hour or so before.

"Harry… do you really think I can do this?" Xander asked as we sat in my office and sipped at Cokes.

"I know you can," I said, and grinned at him. "I think… look, I know that god is out there. I just… I know too much about too many gods and wannabe gods, and I'm not comfortable with any of it.

"But he's out there, Xander. I've got power given to me by one of his angels. And I find myself wondering… how much of a sphere of influence has god got? I mean— is he the god of my Earth— or is he the god of _our Earths?_

"And if it's the second? How much of the last thirteen years of your life have been about you helping Buffy… and how much has been about your time with her helping prepare you for this?"

Xander stared at me for a long, long moment, then shook his head and said, "I don't think I'm ready to think that deeply, not right now.

"Harry, what next? What happens now?"

"Tomorrow, you bring _Amoracchius_ with you to Michael's," I said immediately. "Seeing that there's a new Knight of the Cross at long last, and that it's a man he calls friend? That will do him some good, I'm sure. And he may have some armor that can be worked to fit you, shouldn't be hard.

"I think that Sanya and Michael may both have some advice for you, and I think that you should listen to them both, really, really hard— it may save your life someday.

"I think that you should start working out with Sanya tomorrow, and never mind the other things. You're a good swordsman, I've seen that, but there's always room to be better— especially given that some of the bad guys you'll be fighting are sometimes gonna be way, way older than normal— and will have spent a lot more years than you have fighting with swords.

"We should get you a couple of more modern weapons, too— Michael never used them, or Shiro, but Sanya does, and god doesn't seem to mind. And I happen to know where I can get you a couple of rifles, maybe some grenades, but we can't talk about that around Murphy, remember that." I smiled a little, thinking of the arms stash that Susan had left behind, and how some of that stuff might get used after all, now.

"But for right now?" I said, and drained my Coke. "I think bed is next. See you tomorrow, Xander."

"Yeah," he said, and finished his own drink. He stood up, and I noticed that his posture, always good, had edged significantly towards 'perfect.' "Harry… thanks. For what you said earlier."

"Hey, I just told the truth," I said, offering him my hand.

Xander captured my hand, shook it— and thumped my shoulder. "Yeah, well— I needed to hear it said, I guess. So… thanks."

"No problem."

I slept better than I had in a while, knowing that I'd discharged half of my obligations regarding the Swords of the Cross— and knowing how that would make Michael feel, at a time when a little happiness was a big premium.

When we arrived at Michael's the next morning, Xander went in first— and with _Amoracchius_ slung over his shoulder. Michael was talking to Father Forthill, who'd beaten us there, and Daniel (who let us in), on seeing the sword over Xander's shoulder, frowned for a second. Then Sanya, who'd been behind him, said "Bozhe moi!" which got Michael's attention— and the priest's.

Michael looked over briefly, looked back at Father Forthill— then snapped his eyes back to Xander, and the hilt sticking up over Xander's shoulder. A moment later, Father Forthill looked too— and promptly crossed himself as he muttered, "Thank you, Lord."

Michael got to his feet and came over to stand in front of Xander. He looked into Xander's face for a moment, then said, very softly, "Are you sure, Xander?"

"I've never been more sure of anything in my life," Xander said seriously. "I want this."

"It can get you killed," Michael pointed out. "Or crippled. Look at me."

"I… Michael, I do look at you— and I hope like mad that I can do half the good you've done down the years," Xander said. "I look at you, I look at Harry, I look at Murphy and Molly and Carlos and Dawn… and mostly? I look at Buffy. I look at a lady who, when she was a sixteen year-old girl, went to what she believed was her death— because it's what she was supposed to do.

"If I'm gonna be worthy of being her friend, then _not_ taking up this sword and doing the best I can to save lives, maybe even souls, by wielding it?

"That's not an option. I'm in. I'll do the job as best I can."

Michael didn't say a word, just pulled Xander into a bear hug, held on for a moment— then let Buffy, her eyes welling, step in and hug Xander fiercely. After she'd kissed Xander's cheek and let go, Michael smiled and spoke again.

"Well, I'm sure we still have some armor around here somewhere that can be made to fit you," he said. "And a practice weapon, though I see that _Amoracchius_ has returned to something closer to the form it had when I took it up… Daniel, where did we put that old armor?"

"It's in the attic, Dad," Daniel said immediately. "Matthew, will you help me bring it down?"

The two boys went off, and Xander sat down with Michael and Sanya— but Michael almost immediately stood back up and came over to me.

"So… have you any more doubts about the wisdom Shiro exhibited, and I followed, in giving you our swords to hold, Harry?" he asked, a small smile on his face.

"No, I suppose not— especially since Xander saved our lives last night," I said, and I smiled at my friend. "I just hope I do half as well with finding someone to wield _Fidelacchius_."

"You will," Michael said, and hugged me before going back to talk with Xander and Sanya.

By noon, Xander had been outfitted with both Kevlar and chain mail, and was talking to Sanya about whether it would be smarter to carry a second (probably modern) weapon in his off-hand, or maybe to carry a shield.

"I think the weapon would be smarter," Sanya said thoughtfully. "After all, _Amoracchius_ is the length and weight of a bastard sword. It may be necessary for you to wield it two-handed on occasion. It is easier to drop a second weapon than a shield, Xander."

"Also," Michael added, "I don't recall more than one, perhaps two times when I fought that a shield would actually have been useful. After all, Xander, supernatural creatures will mostly not even notice a shield."

I left them to it, spent the morning with Molly and the older kids, working on getting everything ready for the visitation that night. Molly wanted to have everything laid out for all of the youngsters, so that they could get dressed as soon as they had cleaned up.

After lunch, Michael turned his attention back to the needs of his family, spent a couple of hours just sitting with his kids quietly, the rest of us in the kitchen, not wanting to interrupt the quiet of the family sitting together and remembering the one who wasn't here.

In the late afternoon, I took Carlos and the Scoobies back to the brownstone with me, and we split up to get showered and cleaned up for the visitation. After we'd all dressed in dark, funereal finery, we went back to the Carpenters', and followed Michael and the kids to the funeral home for Charity's visitation.

The funeral home was actually downtown, and I found myself frowning over the short walk to the funeral home from the garage where I parked Captain Midnight. (I tend to not like leaving him in public lots if I can help it.) The sun was still up— the visitation was to run from six to nine, and it was about a quarter to six when we got there— but that hadn't done much to keep the street people at bay. There were a half a dozen homeless people, most of them pretty neat, by comparison, along the block before the funeral home, most of them staking out doorways for sleeping places, but a couple of them just… staring off at nothing. Two of them were actively begging, and one of them, a young woman, looked half-starved. I slipped her a twenty when she approached, obviously ashamed, and the man a few paces past her got a ten— he had the look of a heavy drinker, and I gave him less in a probably-vain hope that he'd put food before booze. The skinny blind kid playing the harmonica with a newsie cap on his head and a baseball cap on the ground in front of him (so wasn't _actively_ begging) got a twenty, mostly because he was playing Billy Joel's Piano Man on a harmonica— and doing a damned good job of it.

We went in to the funeral home, found Michael and the kids— and ended up spreading out a little to give the kids the hugs they seemed to need.

I had just been let go of by Molly— yes, she's a grown-up, but she still needed hugged— when the door opened and Detective Henry Rawlins came in. He glanced around, spoke briefly to the funeral director who approached him, then made a beeline for me. I met him in the doorway between the foyer and the room where the visitation was being held, and he said, "Harry, I hate to interrupt this— but we got another body. Forensics is almost finished with it, and it's not far. Can you come?"

"Of course," I said, nodding. "Let me tell Michael and get my coat."

"You tell Michael, I'll get our coats," Buffy said from beside me. "I'm going, too."

"Good deal," I said, and went to speak to Michael.

"Of course, go," Michael said, looking sad. "You haven't been finding much, have you Harry?"

"No, but that's not the point," I said, putting a hand on his shoulder. "The point is not quitting, Michael— because if I quit, I'm terrified of what Charity's ghost will do to me.

"This may not be magic, but that doesn't mean I can't help find the guy. Sooner or later, he's gonna make a mistake, and it may be me that sees it, or Buffy. So we go."

"Yes, of course," Michael said, and squeezed my arm. He hesitated, then said, his voice deliberately casual, "You and Buffy seem to be getting very close."

"We are," I said, meeting his eyes. "But not that close. Not yet, anyway. I'm… not trying to push anything, on the advice of someone who knows her really well."

Michael's smile broadened for a moment, and he actually laughed softly. "Further proof that Xander is the right man for _Amoracchius_— he got _you_ to listen to advice about love."

I blinked at that, then smiled and said, "You know, you're probably right.

"We'll be back soon, Michael."

"Take as long as you need," Michael said, nodding. "Charity would understand— and you're right, quitting might actually get her to come and haunt you."

I went to the foyer, after I stopped to explain to Maggie and little Harry that I'd be right back, but that the police had asked for my help. They both hugged me, told me to be careful, and Maggie followed me to give the same treatment to Buffy.

I noticed that Rawlins was looking into the room past us as Buffy and I put on our coats, and followed his gaze. Somehow, I failed to be surprised that he was looking at Dawn, his eyes visibly categorizing the differences between her and Michelle Trachtenberg, the actress who'd played her on TV.

In the car (which was waiting at the curb, double parked but with a cardboard sleeve over the driver's side visor flipped down, showing that it was a police vehicle), Rawlins didn't waste a lot of time voicing his suspicions.

"Your sister's name Dawn?" Rawlins asked Buffy as he pulled into traffic.

"Uh-huh," Buffy said, her voice that of someone who wasn't really listening.

"I see," Rawlins said. "Buffy. Xander. Dawn. And all three of you look… a lot like the actors from that show. Not exactly, mind you, but a lot. Which actually makes it easier to believe that you might actually be the slayer, not harder.

"So— are you?"

Buffy glanced sideways at me, and I nodded. Rawlins is good people, and I trusted him completely.

"Yes, I am," she said, and smiled at him when he looked up at her in the rearview mirror. "Hey, lying about it would be kinda stupid."

"I suppose so," he said, nodding slowly. "I appreciate the honesty, young lady." Then he looked up and caught my eyes— harder, I was behind the passenger seat, which he'd slid all the way forward— and gave me a dark look. "Dammit Dresden, why couldn't you be a Star Trek fan? I really could've used a phaser!"

That actually surprised a chuckle out of me, and I managed to explain that I hadn't had a lot to do with Buffy and the others leaving their world before we reached the crime scene.

"Yeah, sure," Rawlins said as we all got out of the car. "You 'just ran into them in the place where the faeries live,' right." He glared at me. "Dresden, I'm not mad— the girl's got to be great to have around for backup, and never mind that she's the perfect backup for a guy like you. I'm just saying— next time, wander towards the science fiction part of Faerie Land, okay?"

I sighed, shook my head and said, "Okay, Rawlins. Whatever you say."

"That's better," he said, and grinned at Buffy. "Can't let these wizard types think they're the bosses, you know."

"Well, I don't have much choice," Buffy said, looking put upon. "He _is_ my boss."

"Poor you," Rawlins said, deadpan— and led us to the crime scene while I was still muttering in protest at that slander.


	20. Chapter 20

_Interlude:_

"Do you know 'Sympathy for the Devil,' by chance?"

She felt the familiar aura of power rolling off of the man who spoke, and even if she hadn't, his choice of music would have made her wonder. It took everything she had not to look up. She didn't know the voice, but that didn't mean anything— new host, new voice. Happened fairly often….

She nodded, shifted position a little bit, and started playing, trying not to let her fear show in any way. She'd not anticipated any of them coming this close— foolish of her, since _he_ wouldn't know all of them on sight, and the ones who might were already inside.

She simply played, deliberately buried herself in the music, which let her sublimate her fear. She played a shorter version, without the long instrumentals of the original, and finished in about three and a half minutes.

"That was great," the man who'd asked for the song said with a chuckle. She saw him as he bent over to put a bill in her hat— a hundred!— and memorized his face as she said in a low, scratchy "Thanks, mister."

He was tall, lean-but-muscular, Caucasian, with medium brown hair and bright eyes, though the dark glasses she wore as part of her disguise kept her from getting the color.

"You're welcome," the man said easily— and he strolled off towards the funeral home, walked past it with only a brief glance-and-smirk, and turned at the next corner. Something about that smirk seemed familiar, and she turned the look over in her mind as she emptied her hat into her jacket pocket— she didn't need the money, but leaving it out there was begging to be robbed.

Then she placed that smirk, she'd seen if many times before, in many different hosts; Thalariel. Thalariel, who preferred male hosts, and always males who knew fighting. Often military men… or criminals. Both, when he could manage it.

_I have to warn __**him**__— no, I have to warn __**them,**_ she thought. _Thalariel loves his violence, loves to hire others to do it when there is risk of discovery— and usually picks a host who has the needed contacts. He almost certainly…._

_And that means that there is danger to the others!_

She thought for a moment, and decided that her original method for conveying the message was the best. She needed to be careful about revealing herself, but this disguise had served its purpose, and could be discarded.

She felt in the inner pocket of her jacket, made sure that the things she'd brought to pass her message on were still there. They were, and she knew she could get the things to him at the end of the visitation. That would be fine— assuming that the police car that had taken him and the girl away brought them back in time.

The girl… she really couldn't be who she looked like, but somehow she gave the impression you'd expect from a slayer; superhuman grace and power, carefully contained and controlled, a confidence that had been earned by surviving many battles….

Add in the man who looked so much like Xander and the girl who could've doubled for Michelle Trachtenberg, and it seemed as though they might really be Buffy Summers and her sister and best friend. Or one of her best friends, at least.

Those three… if they _were_ who they appeared to be, they could only have come here because of _him_. No one else could possibly attract such… well, such weirdness.

She shook her head, put her harmonica to her lips, and started playing "River of Dreams" by Billy Joel as more people started arriving for Charity Carpenter's visitation. She should stay in character until he—

_Oh, stop,_ she told herself. _Now you know that he's in danger, and you have seen the enemy. I can think his name and not give myself away, surely._

_I should stay in character until Harry comes back_.

She played on, and listened to the clink of coins and occasional rustle of bills and waited for a chance to deliver her warning.

_Harry:_

This crime scene was… a little different. We started down an alley, yes, but only to get to the back door of a former restaurant, now vacant and dusty, up for sale according to Rawlins.

The corpse was in the kitchen of the former restaurant, near the back, on a table that had probably been used for prep work. Again, a tall, pretty blond woman in middle age, again with a single stab wound to the heart, and runes carved into her corpse after she died.

"Her name was Gwen Hardy," Rawlins said into the silence as I looked at the corpse. "Age forty. Widow, mother of six kids."

"Dammit," I snarled. "Always with the mothers, damn him."

"Yeah," Rawlins said with a sigh. "Lieutenant Stallings is off telling her sister— listed as an emergency contact in the lady's wallet. Then he's going with her to tell the kids."

"Poor man," Buffy said. She was looking over my shoulder at the wall behind me. "Harry, look at that."

I looked around at the wall over the line of sinks behind me, and saw the words. Written in a large, straggling hand, in the victim's blood, I deduced, were the words "WHY ISN'T IT WORKING, DREAD ONES? I DO AS YOU REQUIRE! WHY DON'T YOU COME?"

"More weirdness," Rawlins said flatly. "Either of you see it?"

I thought for a moment, then shook my head, glanced at Buffy and saw her do the same.

"It's counter-indicative," said a voice from behind us, a voice I knew. I turned to see FBI Special Agent Barry Tilly looking from the victim to the message. "A message like that indicates that the killer's internal logic structure is failing him, that he's headed for self-destruction— but you can see that he remembered to write it with his off hand, trying to hinder handwriting analysis or comparison. Those two things… your boss was right, Rawlins. This guy doesn't make any sense.

"Dresden, how are you doing? I hear you're doing the PI thing again."

"That's going well," I said, then nodded at the woman. "This… it bugs the hell out of me. I can't find any traces of magic here, the guy's using magic that's been nullified, even, and I know enough about serial killers that even I can see this isn't normal.

"Speaking of which— give me a second to make _sure_ there's no magic here."

Tilly didn't say anything, just nodded and leaned against the doorframe as I closed my eyes slowly, willed my wizard's Sight on, and opened them. Again, there were no traces of magic, and I shut my Sight off after sneaking another glance at Buffy with it on— just for my morale, you know?

"Nothing," I sighed. "I expected nothing, but… well, if Contrariness Lad drops the Necronomicon stuff, switches to something still effective… could be ugly. If he keeps going, keep calling me, Rawlins."

"So long as Special Agent Tilly doesn't object, I will," Rawlins said, his voice sounding not at all hostile. "FBI's being given jurisdiction, but keeping SI in on things."

"I don't object," Tilly said mildly. "I've seen the sort of things Mr. Dresden can do, directly reaped the benefits, even."

"Call me Harry," I told him, then waved Buffy over. "And this is my associate, Elizabeth Sinclair."

"You can call me Buffy," she said, stepping forward to shake his hand. "But no Whedon jokes, okay? I've heard them all a hundred times too many at least."

"No problem," Tilly said with a chuckle. "And I'm Barry, unless my bosses are around. If that's the case, I'll use 'mister' and 'miss,' so you're warned.

"Harry… you said the magic the guy's trying to do has been 'nullified.' Can you explain that to an ordinary yutz like me?"

"Pretty simple," I said with a chuckle. "Whenever it's possible, the White Council of Wizards— I told you about them, right?"

"You did," Tilly said, shaking his head. "They know you're alive yet?"

"Not many of them, but a few key people do," I replied. "Anyway, when they can, the White Council likes to put books of spells that can summon dangerous entities out there for the public. That might sound dangerous, until you stop to think that even the most powerful of magical entities have limited resources… and more limited patience with mortals. By putting something like the Necronomicon out there for the wannabes to play with, the Council insured that none of the beings it's supposed to summon will even acknowledge a call from this plane, ever again.

"In fact, it's been rumored that the White Council deliberately told the stories of Cthulhu and his crowd to a hungry young writer named H. P. Lovecraft, so that he'd maybe write stories about them, even encouraged him to do so. Eighty-three years later, the Great Old Ones aren't paying any attention to this plane at all. Though personally? I'll bet they stopped even looking at this plane in eighty-one, when the Call of Cthulhu role-playing game first came out."

Tilly snorted a little laugh, glanced at the corpse and looked ashamed, then said, "Rawlins has your contact information?"

"He does," I agreed. "And Barry… I don't give a shit if it's the middle of the night. You get one of these, you call me. Please. The first victim… she was a friend, and the wife of one of my best friends.

"Anything I can do to help you catch this one… you call."

"I understand," Tilly agreed. "I'll do that."

Buffy and I left, and Rawlins got a uniformed officer to drive us back to the funeral home. The blind kid had moved closer, was playing to a small crowd of people who were dressed in a way that told me that they were either heading to or from Charity's visitation— and I stopped to listen for a moment, because even a not-religious guy like me can appreciate "Amazing Grace" when it's played right, and the kid definitely knew his way around a harmonica.

"He must take requests," Buffy murmured as she stopped with me, slipped her arm through mine. "And he _really_ knows how to play that thing."

"Yeah," I said, and fell silent. The kid finished the hymn, and there was a lot of rustle as people bent over and put bills in the battered old Cubs hat he was using for tips. Buffy and I turned to go inside as the kid started an old Beatles tune— "Let It Be."

We went inside, and we found Michael and his family, did our best to help them through the mess of grief and pain that they were trapped in. I think we did help— and that was enough for me.

We ended up staying a little past nine, since Xander and I needed to hear the instructions for pallbearers for the next day. Murphy offered Xander, Carlos and Dawn a ride, as Buffy and I were going to go help with tuck-in duty at Michael's request.

When we left, we went out the side entrance, as the front doors had been locked, and I saw a girl— the too-skinny, sickly looking girl I'd slipped a twenty when we arrived— walking across the parking lot towards us. She didn't seem at all hostile— heck, she looked nervous, maybe even scared— but I still slowed, let Michael and his family get ahead of us, and I felt Buffy tense up as I did.

The girl stopped maybe fifteen feet from us and said, "Are you… are you Harry Dresden, sir?"

"I am," I said cautiously. Still nothing that even hinted of threat, but how had she known my name?

"The boy— the blind boy, with the harmonica?" She paused and gulped when I nodded, then said in a rush, "He paid me to give this to you, _only_ to you and said you'd know what it means and take all the proper precautions." She held out the blind kid's beaten up Cubs hat by the bill, and it sagged as though it had something with some heft to it inside.

I stepped forward slowly, so as not to scare this girl— she looked maybe seventeen, but I'd have bet on sixteen and believed fifteen— and took the hat from her, and said "Thanks. Do you know the kid?"

"No, I never saw him before tonight," the girl said. She looked scared for a moment, then defiant as she said, "I told him not to come back here— he made so much money that Kevin and Crasher were gonna rob him. But after I warned him, he left with a bunch of people that came out of the funeral place, so they couldn't do it."

"Good for you for warning him," Buffy said, and smiled. "Hey, you got enough to get some food in you?"

"Yes, I do," the girl said as I cupped the hat in one hand so that it would fall open. "He— Mr. Dresden I mean— gave me a twenty earlier, and the blind kid gave me a _hundred_ to deliver the hat and what's in it to him."

"Okay, then thank— Harry?" Buffy said, turning sharply to me as a made a sound of… mixed fury, hate and fear, I guess. "What's wrong?"

I didn't answer for a second, and I very, very carefully controlled my voice before I spoke— the girl hadn't done anything at all, and I didn't want to scare her. "You'd never seen the blind kid before, you said. Did you hear a name at all? Today, I mean?"

"No, sir," the girl said. "He showed up about four, got a good place to sit, put his hat out and started playing at five, when the foot traffic picked up. No one asked his name, not that I heard."

"Okay," I said, and nodded slowly as my hand closed around the cap, clenching it closed. "You've been very helpful. Is there anything I can do to repay you?"

"No, thanks," the girl said, looking relieved. "I'm okay, now that I got food money."

I passed her a business card, said, "If you see that kid again, let me know, please? He just did me a favor the size of Lake freaking Michigan, and I'd like to at least thank him for it."

The girl seemed to get by my tone of voice that I was serious, and that I meant no harm to that kid at all. She nodded, said she would, then walked away as Buffy stood looking up at me worriedly.

"Harry, what's wrong?" she asked.

"Not… not this second," I said, still carefully controlling my voice. "Right now, I need you to go over toward the parking garage, well away from me so I don't accidentally blow up your phone, and call Murphy or Dawn— I want them at Michael's. Pretty much now. Them, Carlos, and especially Xander. Tell him to bring the sword."

"Oh, shit," Buffy said, even as she walked off, digging in her purse for her phone. "I'm not going to like this, am I?"

"No one is," I said, watching as she turned on the phone and stopped under a streetlight maybe thirty paces from me.

I tucked the ball cap in my duster pocket, and when Buffy finished her call, I went straight to Captain Midnight, and drove straight to Michael's. We beat Murphy and the others there, and I went up and straight in. Michael was sitting in the living room, the children gathered around him, all of them praying quietly. I didn't interrupt— but I did look around for Sanya.

The big Russian saw me, saw my face, and came over to me quietly.

"What is wrong?" he asked quietly.

"After the kids are in bed, we'll talk about it." I looked him in the eyes and asked softly, "Where's your sword, Sanya?"

"It is in my room," he said slowly. "In the basement. I take it that I should perhaps have it closer to hand?"

"Yes." I said no more than that, but Sanya moved quickly towards the guest room in the basement, not quite running.

Michael and the kids finished their prayers, and Buffy and I moved in to help with getting them upstairs and ready for bed. Michael saw my face, but only frowned a bit (I'd gotten my expression under better control after Sanya's reaction).

Once the little ones were in bed, I caught Michael alone at the top of the stairs and said in a low voice, "Michael I have… I have something awful to tell you about… I may know something about Charity's death. I can't say for certain, not yet— but I may. I will tell you, and the others— I think they're here, I heard the door— but I need to know… do we include Molly? Daniel? Alicia and Matthew? Do we go as low as Amanda?"

Michael looked at me, saw something in my face that told him I wasn't kidding about "awful" and said slowly, "Molly and Daniel. They're legally adults. I'll decide about the rest after I know what it is you have to say."

"Good enough," I said. I leaned against the wall and said, "Can we use your recreation room?"

"Of course," he replied, and motioned me to go down the stairs in front of him. "You gather the others, I'll explain to the children, bring Molly and Daniel in once I've done so."

I nodded, trotted downstairs, and ignored all efforts to talk to me as I headed for the recreation room. I started pacing once I was there, long, agitated strides taking me from the fireplace at one end of the room to the fireplace at the other end of the room and back again, over and over, while my friends stood and watched me with worried expressions.

When Michael came in with Daniel and Molly, I finally stopped pacing and stood where all the seated people could see me. I didn't waste time, just asked, "How many of you saw that blind kid that was playing the harmonica for tips a couple of doors from the funeral home tonight?"

Every admitted that they had seen him, and Michael said, "I remember him. He was playing 'Eleanor Rigby' when we walked by. I stopped and listened for a moment, and tipped him."

"Anyone notice anything odd about him?" I asked the room.

"Uh, well, he wasn't a him, actually," Dawn said. She blushed when everyone looked at her and said, "Well, she wasn't. That was a girl. Seriously."

"How do you know?" Sanya asked, sounding curious, not like he was arguing.

"It… uh, her neck. And the way she sat. Something about her jawline…." Dawn blushed deeply, then said defiantly, "I thought she was really… attractive, okay?"

Oh. That was… unexpected. From the looks on various faces, only one person wasn't surprised at the combination of words, blush and defiance. If you guessed anyone other than Xander Harris to be the unsurprised one, I'm gonna go out on a limb and say that you were never a fan of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. The man _sees_. That's all. He just… _sees_.

"Okay, well, I'll take that as a strange thing, sure," I said, nodding. "Anything else? Anyone?"

After a moment, Michael said, "Apparently not, Harry. Why do you ask?"

"Because there's obviously something special about that kid," I said with a sigh. "Special, and… and I'm fairly sure that h— she's on our side, whoever she is.

"She gave another one of the homeless people from that area a hundred bucks to give this to me."

I pulled the hat out of my duster pocket (yes, I still had on my duster— thanks to Molly's enchantment, it was perfectly comfortable), squatted next to the coffee table near Michael, and took out the biggest item in the hat first; a plastic chess piece, from one of those cheap sets with the molded pieces that were made to look like people from the Renaissance period of France or Italy. Those are pretty detailed, and the piece I took out was the white queen— but the piece had been snapped in two at about chest level. I set that on the table, then scooped out the rest of the contents, held them in my hand and counted them out on the table one at a time.

It was a handful of dimes, and there were thirty of them. _Thirty pieces of silver_… and a broken white queen.

Michael's face went ashen, and he closed his eyes abruptly. Molly let out a choked sound, Daniel made a sound that was between gasp of pain and snarl of anger, and Sanya snarled, "That is not possible!"

"It is," Michael said, his voice low and filled with something that sounded way too close to despair for my comfort. "Sanya, my family and I are protected from _supernatural_ threats. We can't be protected from non-supernatural threats, not that way. Remember Roarke Douglas? The man who kidnapped Alicia to get _Amoracchius_ and _Fidelacchius?_ If not for Harry's intervention, he would have killed my daughter— and he was _one of ours_.

"There is nothing to prevent Nicodemus from _hiring_ someone to kill Charity."

"That's not fair!" Daniel cried. "That's— God can't just let something like that m-_monster_ hire someone to kill Mom, that's not right!"

"Daniel, you know better," Michael said, very gently. "God can't interfere past a certain point, and—"

"He SHOULD!" Daniel almost screamed. "You fought for him for years, you weren't here anything like as much as you wanted to be, as much as _we_ wanted you to be, and he OWES YOU FOR THAT!"

"No, son," Michael said softly. "God owes us nothing, because he's already given us everything."

"That's crap!" Daniel snapped, wiping furiously at his face. "Just because that asshole Nicodemus was smart enough to think of hiring some normal guy to kill Mom, she has to die? Or maybe pointing some serial killer at her, I don't know, but _it's not right!_ That's not fair!"

"Daniel, life isn't fair," Molly said softly, and stood up to go stand in front of him. "I had to learn that the hard way— don't you make God or life or whoever teach you that way.

"I nearly destroyed two people I cared for, Daniel, because I used power I didn't understand— and if not for Harry, and for Daddy helping them, the White Council would have killed me for it. I didn't know any better— it wasn't fair.

"But it happened. I earned my way back, with Harry's help, and Mom's help, and Daddy's, and yours and all the Jawas, sure— but I learned that fair? Fair isn't what life's about.

"Life's about doing all you can to make things as good as you can for as many as you can. And right now, you're not making anything better, Daniel.

"You know it's okay to be mad at God, you know he's okay with that. But you can't ask him to make our lives magically perfect. That's not being fair, Daniel.

"That's being selfish."

Daniel sobbed once, lunged forward and hugged Molly, and Michael got up and hugged them both while the rest of us found something else to look at.

When Michael cleared his throat, we all looked back his way, found him sitting on the couch with his two oldest kids, Molly between him and Daniel.

"Harry, what do you think is happening here?" Michael asked. "You haven't talked much about what you've learned, but I think it's time to tell us what you know— and what you suspect."

"Well, this last piece of information makes other pieces of information that we already had make more sense," I said, shaking my head to try and get the information there to fall into place. "What we've been seeing, according to the little bit I know about serial killers and the lots that Murphy and the other cops know, is stuff that doesn't make a lot of sense. This killer is acting like he's from two different ends of the spectrum of crazy— at the same time. His pattern of killing, one a day? That's the sort of thing you usually see from a killer who's heading for the outer realms of crazy, who's likely to self-destruct, kill himself or turn himself in, really soon.

"But he's very organized; he set things up to lure Charity to him, and it wasn't any sort of a simple setup. He stabs each victim the same way in the same place, and he obviously knows how to use a knife. He carves the runes from the Necronomicon very meticulously, which a killer who's killing every day shouldn't have the patience for. That's from the other end of the serial killer crazy spectrum, the controlled, crazy-but-able-to-fake-sane end.

"And on the victim they found today, he added a… well, it read like a desperate plea to the beings he's supposedly trying to summon, written on a wall in the victim's blood… but while writing this desperate plea, sounding like he's on the end of his rope— he remembered to write with his off hand, to make handwriting analysis or identification harder."

"It's like… it's like someone hired an assassin," Daniel said, his voice wavering a little. "And said, 'make it look like it's a serial killer, to avoid people seeing it for an assassin's work,' and the guy's trying— but he doesn't know enough about serial killers."

I raised an eyebrow and looked at Daniel with new respect. He saw, blushed, and said, "I'm majoring in Criminal Justice at college, Harry. So I know a little, and I've been reading on my own."

"You looking to be a cop?" Murphy asked him.

"Yes, Karrin," Daniel said, nodding at her.

"When you're ready to apply, you get the application and bring it to me at Dresden Investigations," Murphy said, nodding. "I can help you fill it out— the applications for law enforcement jobs are a lot more complicated than most jobs— and I'll get a couple of cops who are still on the force to give you a recommendation, maybe even a reference."

"Thank you!" Daniel said, pleasantly surprised. "Will you give me a reference, too? Please?"

"I would, gladly," Murphy said, her voice gentle and a little sad, "but a reference from me wouldn't be helpful, Daniel."

"Oh." Daniel shook his head and sighed. "I'm sorry, Karrin, I didn't mean to upset you."

"Not your fault," Karrin said. "Also, I'm flattered. So don't be sorry."

"At any rate, you skewered the situation, Daniel," I said, nodding at him. "That's what I'm thinking exactly. My only questions are, how many more victims before the guy gives it up? Do I have time to catch him?

"And can he point me at that son-of-a-bitch Nicodemus?"

"Those are good questions," Buffy said, nodding emphatically.

"Don't take any unnecessary risks, Harry," Michael cautioned. "I don't want this getting you hurt, too."

"So long as I get to define 'unnecessary,' I can do that," I said, and showed my teeth in something that wasn't more than distantly related to a smile. "It's going to be a loose definition, I can tell you that."

"Harry…." Michael said, his tone one of 'near lecture.'

"I'll be as careful as I can, Michael— but I have _had it_ with these assholes." I shook my head a little. "I know, I'm no Knight. But I have the Soulfire, and that… it reduces the gap between them and me by a good bit. I'm not even going to try to imagine that it levels the playing field— but it does put me in a place where, if I'm smart enough, if I'm crazy enough, imaginative enough… I can maybe do them the sort of harm that says in a loud, clear voice, 'thou shalt not mess with the friends of Harry Dresden, for he is a vicious little wretch with no sense of humor.' You know?"

For a moment, Michael only looked at me, his expression shifting constantly, as though he couldn't decide what to feel— then he laughed. A full-throated, real, live, honest-to-god _laugh_. It did _me_ good to hear it.

"All right, Harry," Michael said, shaking his head ruefully. "All right. You do what you need to do— but I warn you, I'm not going to play fair this time."

"What do you mean?" I asked cautiously.

Michael gave me a smile that looked more than a little self-satisfied, and he said, "I'm going to remind you that you are now officially a part of this family— and that if something happens to you, it will hurt my children as well as me, and… as well as your daughter."

I opened my mouth, blinked, closed my mouth. I opened my mouth again, and this time I managed to say, "You cheat. That's not very becoming on a former Knight of the Cross, Michael."

"How is it cheating to tell you the truth?"

"I'm not sure, but you better hope I never figure it out," I said, and smiled at him. "Because then you'd have to stop."

Michael chuckled, and asked me if I had any plans.

"Tomorrow, I think that we should have someone carry Xander's and Sanya's swords at the funeral," I said. "Them being pallbearers, they shouldn't try to carry them for themselves. I don't anticipate any trouble, not yet, but better safe than sorry."

"Why don't you anticipate trouble?" Molly asked. "I mean, won't Nicodemus want to brag? To… to rub it in?"

"Oh, sure," I agreed. Then I held up a finger and said, "But remember, Molly, Nicodemus is around two thousand years old. He's patient. And he also knows that it's probably more effective to re-open a wound later. I suspect that he was going to wait a while, until your dad had time to get over it some. In fact, I suspect that if your dad were to recover a lot, and meet a woman and get involved, and maybe want to remarry?

"That son-of-a-bitch would show up on the wedding day, and he'd tell you all what he did _then,_ when it would do the most damage."

Michael stared at me for a moment, then nodded slowly. "He's right, Molly. That's… a very accurate supposition, I think."

"Damn, Harry," Carlos said, sounding shocked. "You could scare a guy, being able to think that much like a total bastard like Nicodemus."

"Don't think it doesn't scare me," I sighed. I shivered a little, and it wasn't a put on— I didn't like being able to think like anything as monstrous as Nicodemus. "On the other hand, don't think I won't use it as much as I can— any edge I can get over that jerk, I'll take."

"And well you should," Michael said, nodding. He looked at Sanya and Xander and said, "I might be able to help with getting your swords to the funeral unnoticed tomorrow. Sanya, will you let me carry _Esperacchius_ for a time tomorrow?"

"No offense is meant, Michael," Sanya said with a snort, "but I think that you should know that you have just asked a very stupid question. Is 'duh' the correct response to such?"

"Thank you," Michael said, chuckling a little. He looked at Xander and said, "I'm not as sure about Amoracchius, but I could certainly use your help with concealing Esperacchius, if you don't mind."

"Of course I don't mind," Xander said, and stood. "Your workshop?"

"Yes, in a moment," Michael said. He looked around at the rest of us and said, "I thank you all for standing beside my family and I tonight. You all made things easier to take. But I will probably be some time, so I think we should say our goodnights now. Xander, you can borrow my truck when it's time to go home."

We all said our good byes, then Murphy took off in her car, and I loaded Buffy, Dawn and Carlos into Captain Midnight, and headed off in the general direction of home— but not straight there.

"Where are we going, Harry?" Buffy asked when I drove past the place where I should have turned to go to my building.

"Pizza 'Spress," I said, sighing. "I hate to involve them deeper than I have, considering who the problem is… but I need to ask the Guard for help."

"We're going to ask pizza place guards for help?" Dawn asked, confused.

Buffy explained while I got us to Pizza 'Spress and went in to order. When I came back out twenty minutes later, Dawn looked kind of tickled, and when I set the boxes down on a dumpster lid and turned to ask my friends to cover their ears, I found Buffy and Dawn both with the job already done. (Carlos didn't have to, since Toot-Toot had cut him in on the deal.)

Toot responded really fast, in less than two minutes, and the first thing I did was introduce him to Dawn, which tickled her no end. Toot-Toot made as big a deal over meeting her as he had over meeting Buffy, which I thought was mighty nice of him.

Finally, Toot-Toot turned to me and said, while looking over my shoulder at the four boxes of pizza, "How may the Guard serve you, my lord?"

"This one's a little different, Toot," I said slowly. "I need you to listen really careful, and think hard about what I say to you, okay?"

"Yes, my lord!" Toot piped, and then folded his legs under him to fly in lotus in front of my face.

"I found out some more about the murder of my friend, Toot," I said slowly, "and it's very bad. The people behind it are… they are so powerful that it's scary, even to wizards like Carlos and I, and to the Slayer and her Watcher, there." (Dawn blinked at that, then smiled a little and nodded a thank you my way.) "Toot… the monsters behind Charity's murder are worse than the monster you saved me from on that island a couple of years ago."

Toot's eyes went very, very wide for a moment, and he said a soft, startled, "Oh."

"Yes. Oh." I nodded, saw that I had gotten through to him— the skinwalker that had nearly killed me had also done damage to Toot-Toot, though the little guy's plastic-Pepto-Bismol-bottle armor had saved him from grievous harm. "So, when I ask this for the guard's help this time, I'm _asking_— no orders, no compulsion, and anyone who refuses is still a member of the Za Lord's Guard without me thinking any less of them.

"Furthermore, I want everyone who agrees to help to be very, very careful, Toot. While I don't think that the man who killed Charity was one of the monsters I'm talking about, he was certainly hired by them, and one or more of them might be with him at any time.

"But if the guard can find the van that the killer used, that would maybe help me save some lives, Toot-Toot. And for that… well, I'll be grateful, and the rations will be increased."

Toot-Toot straightened up to fly at attention, and said, "There will be no need to increase the pizza rations, my lord. I will ask the guard, not order them, and we will accept standard rations."

"Thank you, General," I said, nodding solemnly. Then I smiled and added, "Thanks, Toot-Toot. You're a hell of a faerie, you know that?"

"And you're a hell of a human, Harry," Toot said with a big, cheesy grin.

Then he pulled his horn and blew it, then flew up maybe twenty feet over my head, and met the faeries that responded there. He spoke for a couple of minutes, and I stood there biting my lips, hoping that the little folk would be willing to help.

After those couple of minutes of conversation, _every single faerie there_ flew down to bow or curtsy in front of my face, then flew once around Buffy and her sister in a funny orbit that let them go by each at head height, and shot off into the night in a pattern that plainly showed that they were all spreading out to look for the killer's van.

"The guard as a whole agreed to be careful, Harry," Toot said as he dropped to hover with his eyes on level with mine, "but they all insisted that they were going to help." He smiled at me, and he looked proud of the Guard. "Also, I need to follow you home— this could take time, I may need to come to your home to tell you when we find the 'van'. And besides…." Toot flew over to land on my shoulder, and whispered, "The brownies need to know, because they're supposed to provide their services for life, and you are alive again, which is always a good thing!"

"They don't have to—" I started to say.

"Yes, they do," Toot said firmly. "They agreed to do it, Harry, and you know that a faerie's word is his bond!"

I couldn't argue with that; it was a part of Faerie nature that they kept their word.

"Then of course you may follow," I said, nodding. "Though you'd be welcome inside."

"Really?" Toot-Toot said. I nodded, and he let out a little whoop and flew a loop-the-loop. "I can ride in a car with two wizards a slayer and a watcher— wait until I tell the others!"

I laughed and led the way to the car, and we drove home with Toot-Toot perched on the dashboard facing us all, and asking Buffy and Dawn questions about their trip through the outer parts of the Nevernever, which they answered as best they could.


	21. Chapter 21

_Interlude:_

The funeral she would have to watch from farther away, and more carefully. She didn't think that Nicodemus would risk getting too close to that, or allowing the others to, but that wasn't guaranteed, so she would be cautious.

It didn't work out like she'd planned, but it did work out… she supposed.

There was a restaurant and bar just down the street from the cemetery where Charity Carpenter was to be buried, and they had a sidewalk café out front. It opened at eleven, three hours before the scheduled graveside service, which would be where Nicodemus and the others showed up, if they were going to. So she arrived at one, disguised again, this time more simply, as a college student. A pile of books, a notebook, a sketchbook, some pens and pencils, clothing that she thought of as 'bohemian' (a white peasant blouse, a long, multi-colored skirt, sandals, and a broad-brimmed straw hat) and she was ready to sit and take up space and observe.

That last Saturday in March was glorious— the temperature hovered around seventy degrees, there was almost no wind, only an occasional gentle breeze, and no clouds could be seen— so she gladly sat outside, in the sidewalk café area. Being only half a block from the cemetery, she was able to watch the long procession of cars that began to arrive a little after two, and to keep an eye out for suspicious loiterers or wanderers before then. She'd seen no sign of any of Nicodemus's followers, so she relaxed, watched the little bit of the funeral she could see, and sketched, her hands moving surely over the paper as she sketched something that she had seen only with borrowed eyes, but still thought… beautiful.

The funeral ended, but she stayed, working on the sketch before her, drinking soda— she might have to switch to diet soda, someday, but for now, her metabolism seemed sympathetic, and she ate and drank as she wished without gaining weight— and even ordering a plate of French fries when the waitress came by after the funeral ended.

She was halfway through the plate of fries and nearly done with her sketch when a shadow passed across the sketchpad, hovered for a moment— then moved again as the person who cast it sat down across from her.

She jerked erect in fear that one of her enemies had noticed her, found her— then stared across the table in surprise, her fear evaporating.

The girl across the table from her was tall, five-eight or -nine, with long brown hair held neatly in a ponytail. Green eyes set in an oval face with a nose that was just the right size. Lush lips, no makeup at all— and a determined set to the young woman's jaw.

It was the sister of the girl who looked so much like the slayer, who looked very much like the actress that had played the slayer's sister, and her eyes were darkened with suspicion.

The waitress came over with a glass of water, and the intruder asked for iced tea, and sat still until the waitress had brought it, then spoke.

"Okay," the intruder said, putting her elbows on the table and clasping her hands under her chin. "Who the heck are you, and what's your interest in Harry Dresden, his friends, and the death of Charity Carpenter?"

"I'm sorry, but I don't—" she started.

"Don't!" the brown-haired girl said, her hands unlacing and moving to rest flat on the table. "Don't bother, okay? I saw your sketch, and you're good enough that it almost looks like a freaking _photo_ of Michael and Charity.

"Now… who are you? What's your interest in this?

"I'm willing to listen, and I'm willing to believe that you're one of the good guys, given that you helped Harry figure out what's going on— but if you lie to me, or blow me off, I'm going to have to change my mind. And at that point? Well… you don't want to go there. I've been taught to fight by someone who's existence is largely one big fight, and I can take you, I'm pretty sure."

She hesitated, then sighed and said, "All right, I can tell you… a little. But in return, you answer me one question; is your real name Dawn Summers?"

The girl across the table from her blinked and nodded slowly. "Not much point in lying, I guess— I get teased about looking like the actress that played me so much that it's almost insane."

"By all the angels above," she breathed, a slow smile spreading over her face. "Harry has the slayer and two Watchers working with him… that could _only_ happen to him."

"A lot of people say that," Dawn said, nodding. "So… your turn. Start with your name."

"You can call me Jan," she said, and sighed as Dawn glared at her. "Let me explain, please, before you start beating my last name out of me?"

For a moment, Dawn only stared, then she sighed and said, "Go ahead."

"I'm trying to help Harry," she said slowly, "but I have to be very careful— and that includes about letting him know why I'm helping, who I am. If I tell him those things, it would almost certainly change his behavior, and if those watching him—"

"The Nickelheads," Dawn interrupted, and the woman snickered a little laugh.

"Yes, the Nickelheads," she agreed. "If they notice a change in Harry's behavior, see him… well he's not the master of subtlety, you understand?"

This time it was Dawn's turn to snicker a laugh, then add, "Most times, he's not— I'll give you that much. But I think he's learning."

"One can hope," she sighed. "But anyway, if the Nickelheads see Harry… looking around for me, which he probably wouldn't be able to stop himself from doing, well… _they_ might find me.

"I'm not ready for that. Not at _all_."

"Okay," Dawn said, leaning back. "Let me ask you one question, Jan, and I might be willing to keep my mouth shut."

"You can ask." She set herself, trying to figure out what this girl might ask that would cause her to agree to staying quiet.

Dawn asked her question, and it was only three words— but it nearly caused the woman she asked it of to pass out.

She became aware of Dawn's arm around her shoulders, and something cold pressed against her forehead. She managed to straighten, and saw Dawn's hand, with several ice cubes from her water glass in it, below her. The young woman had held the ice against her forehead to prevent her from actually collapsing. When she straightened, Dawn leaned back and withdrew her arm, and on seeing that her color had returned, sat back down in her chair and looked at her steadily.

"How did you know?" she asked, her voice barely a whisper.

"I'm a Watcher," Dawn said with no small amount of pride. "I've heard Xander talk about the things that have happened to Harry, and I've heard Harry talk about them. I did what a Watcher does— I put things together."

"You… I am impressed," she said, nodding. "You must be very good at it."

"Yes," Dawn agreed. "In fact, I'm going to offer my services full-time to Harry, basically collating everything he and his friends know about the bad stuff, and seeing what comes of it. I think… well, I like working for the Museum, but it's not _enough_. I've been a Watcher, and that… that's who I want to go on being."

"I can see that," she said, nodding slowly. She hesitated a moment longer, then asked, "You won't tell him, will you?"

"No," Dawn agreed, standing up. "I'll tell him that today's idea didn't pan out. You have a point— it'd screw up your chances of helping him, and I think you can be a huge help, so… yeah. Your secret's safe."

"Thank you," she said, and stood up herself, shook the taller woman's hand. "I want to surprise him, and… well, I hope that the surprise will be happy."

Dawn stared at the other woman for a moment, then shook her head and said, "Silly people come in all shapes and sizes, I guess.

"Of _course_ he's going to be happy to see you, good grief. Don't be stupid, it doesn't suit you well at all. 'I hope it'll be a happy surprise.' My god, aren't you supposed to be a super-genius?"

She smiled at the young Watcher's disdain of Harry being other than happy to see her, blushed at the implied combination of gentle insult and backwards compliment, then said, "I… look, could you…." She sighed, then tore the drawing she'd done of Michael and Charity out of her sketchpad. "Could you give this to Michael? Tell everyone you found this on the table, maybe?"

Dawn looked at her steadily for a moment, then smiled and said, "I'll do that. It's beautiful, and I think Michael and his family will love it.

"Also, it adds even more mystique to your identity, which, not a bad idea."

"Thank you," she said earnestly, and shook Dawn's hand again before the girl left the restaurant to go back to her friends and family.

She picked up her things and went back to her hotel, where she started trying to figure out her next move— or Harry's, since that might color her own.

_Harry:_

Toot-Toot actually came upstairs with me, let me show him my room so he could find me for certain, then took off to help the rest of the Guard look for that van.

My sleep was interrupted only by bad dreams that night— no word from the Guard. Dammit.

When we arrived at the Carpenter's for brunch— Michael and his mother had insisted— Michael was walking with a crutch, not his usual cane, and that worried me, until I got close enough to hear him say softly, "_Esperacchius,_ Harry." At which point I got it— the crutch did look a little different from many, but not so much that you'd notice it, or think, "Oh, hey— there must be a Sword of the Cross concealed in there!"

"Smooth," I said, nodding. _"Amoracchius?"_

"In the spare tire mount on the back of the van," Michael said, nodding. "Xander will be able to get to it quickly if there's trouble."

"All right, then," I said. "I guess we're as ready as we're going to get."

The funeral sucked— but then, I've always hated funerals. Add in a bunch of crying children and women, one of them my own daughter, and I was even more upset than I thought I would be.

The service at St. Mary of the Angels was surprisingly dignified, and by watching Molly, I was able to avoid not standing, kneeling and sitting when I was supposed to. Father Forthill's eulogy was amazing— but then, he'd known Charity far better than most priests know most of their parishioners, what with being Michael's contact in the Church during his days of carrying _Amoracchius_.

It was on the way to the cemetery that Dawn asked if we'd mind if she didn't return to Michael's with us straight away.

"Why not?" Buffy asked, looking at Dawn in the rearview mirror.

"Well, it occurred to me that our cross-dressing blind girl might be watching from somewhere near the grave site," Dawn said, blushing just a little. "And since I'm the only one who noticed she was a girl, even, I'm probably the most likely one to see through another disguise. She might not leave right away— that gets you noticed more than staying, sometimes— so I might spot her."

"And thus have more time to drool over her," Buffy said, her voice light and teasing.

"I won't drool," Dawn said, glaring at Buffy. "That's gauche."

"I have no objection, so long as you're careful and stick to public places," Buffy said, and looked sideways at me. "Harry?"

"Those are good conditions," I agreed. "Will you stick to that?"

"Gladly," Dawn said, smiling a little. "Honestly, Harry, I don't go _looking_ for trouble."

"Then why does it find you so often?" Buffy and I asked— in almost perfect stereo.

Carlos snickered softly, and Dawn glared across Xander at him for a moment before sitting back and pretending to pout.

The first thing I saw when I pulled Captain Midnight in behind the hearse was a dark limousine sitting across the asphalt path from the hearse that bore Charity's coffin. The second thing I saw was a sixty-something man in a very expensive suit shoving his face into Michael's and screaming something I couldn't hear over my car's engine. A woman beside the man seemed to be screaming, too, and Michael looked shocked and… hurt.

We got out in a hurry, and I caught some of the old man's words "—never have happened if she'd listened to us, if she'd divorced you as she should've and come home!"

I got it, then. Charity had left home after discovering her magic, because her rich, socialite parents would rather believe she was insane than merely different, and had sent her to "schools" that were more and more like "mental hospitals." Apparently, she'd made some effort to contact them after marrying Michael— not surprising, because Charity had had a big heart— and it didn't seem like that had gone well.

"Mister Forsythe, I loved your daughter and—" Michael started.

"LOVED HER!" Charity's father screamed. "YOU MADE A _**JOKE**_ OUT OF HER!"

"What?" Michael asked weakly. "A joke? I never—"

"My daughter," Forsythe snarled in Michael's face, "was never, _ever_ meant to be a common housewife!"

Mrs. Forsythe put her two cents in, then, sobbing, "We were so ashamed, we couldn't believe that she'd choose some… some _laborer_ over coming home!"

About then my mouth, as it so often does, took off without me.

"Okay, jackass," I snarled, stepping up beside Michael and moving between him and the old man, "in the first place, if you really loved your daughter, you'd have respected her decisions. You'd have become part of her life, seen how happy this man and their children made her, and been _grateful_ for that.

"In the second place, there was _nothing_ common about Charity— and you were so busy worrying about her commonality that you never bothered to see the woman who stood by her family through things that no 'common' woman ever had to deal with. You never knew the woman who _literally_ fought to save her oldest child's life, fought harder and with more skill than most soldiers.

"You never knew the woman who could produce a meal for more than a dozen people at the drop of a hat, and did so when she could, because she enjoyed being kind, and knew that her cooking was a kindness.

"You never knew the woman who stitched up a near-stranger she didn't even especially like, just because he was a man her husband called friend!

"You never knew Charity Carpenter— and you have _no right_ to badmouth her!"

"She was my daughter!" Forsythe snapped, and tried to push me aside.

That was a mistake. I didn't get to point that out to him, though— Murphy, who'd come up beside me at some point, simply caught hold of Forsythe's wrist and suddenly, he was gasping and standing on his tiptoes.

"She was not your daughter," Murphy said calmly. "You gave up the right to call her that when you stopped respecting her decisions, when you cut her out of your lives because she wouldn't live _her_ life _your_ way.

"Now, I'm going to suggest that you leave, sir, and do so quietly and without further conflict. Because, you see, I did know your Charity— not as well as I'd have liked, but I knew her— and I did see the woman my friend just told you about, did _respect_ that woman.

"And I will be _damned_ if some parasitic socialite with a guilty conscience is going to disrupt her funeral."

With that, Murphy shoved Forsythe against the limousine— and the driver, who had apparently been listening to an iPod while his employers were out of the car, jumped out, jerking earbuds out of his ears, and reached for Murphy.

He didn't get to her— Sanya stepped between them and said, in a very calm, pleasant voice, "You will get back in the car, or I will be forced to break at least one of your bones. Possibly more, if you actually know how to fight."

"TAKE YOUR HANDS OFF OF MY HUSBAND, YOU BITCH!" screamed Mrs. Forsythe, and charged past Sanya towards Murphy.

Which is when _Dawn_ stepped in, caught the woman neatly by the shoulders, then shook her once, gently, and said, "Calm down— or someone is going to go to jail, and I guarantee you, with all the witnesses here? Those someones will be you and your husband.

"Won't _that_ look good in the Tribune?"

Instantly, both of the Forsythes stopped fighting, and their driver stopped visibly sizing up Sanya and estimating his chances. (Honestly, the driver looked relieved— I don't think he liked those estimates he was coming up with.)

They left quietly— and Michael and Father Forthill both thanked those of us who'd intervened.

"Though you could have been a little easier on Mr. Forsythe, Harry," Michael said gently. "He was—"

"He was trash talking you and your wife at her funeral, in front of your children," I said, my own voice level and calm. "Michael… that was all the 'easy on him' that I had."

Michael smiled a slightly watery smile at that— and shook my hand, squeezing hard.

We went on with the funeral, though as I moved over with the other pallbearers, I heard Buffy say to her sister, "That was _great,_ Dawn— Giles couldn't have done it better himself."

I had to agree there.

We got through the funeral with no more surprises, and when we left, Dawn said she'd be along in two hours at the most, then walked away from the cemetery, heading for a coffee shop across the street and down the block, one with tinted windows that would let a watcher sit and watch unobserved.

At Michael's there was something like a wake— only without the drinking and the maudlin bits. People came, sat around and ate from the tons of food that had been brought since Charity's death, and they talked about the lady. Good memories, and mostly shared without tears. It was… I'd never really experienced anything like that. I barely remembered my father's funeral, and there'd been no one there but the social worker in charge of me, and me. Then… I'd been out of it from some serious injuries when there would have been a funeral for Donald Morgan, if there had been one. There hadn't been, as he was officially a traitor to the White Council when he died. There'd been a wake of sorts after I woke up and was discharged from medical care— but Morgan was a sour old bastard and a Warden of incredible bravery and power. The talk about him hadn't been anything like this, it had mostly been war stories.

I liked what happened at the Carpenter house after the funeral. It made me feel… warm.

Dawn did catch up with us in less than the two hours she'd promised, and she gathered me, Buffy, Murphy and Carlos in with her eyes, met us in the kitchen, where Xander waited for us— she'd seen him first, I guess.

"I didn't catch her," Dawn said, shaking her head in frustration and gesturing with the piece of rolled up paper in her hand, "but I know where she was. That place with the tables outside that was just down the street? She was there. If I'd gone there first, I'd probably have been able to talk to her."

"Any idea what she wants?" I asked. "Did you get a good description?"

"I got a half-assed description," Dawn said, "and I found this on the table where she'd been sitting."

She unrolled the paper and held it up for us to see— and I caught my breath. It was a pencil drawing of Michael and Charity, nearly lifelike in its detail, sitting together somewhere— I couldn't tell where, it was a head-and-shoulders thing.

"That's gorgeous," Murphy said softly. "Dawn… I think Michael would probably like to have that."

"I know, I'm planning to give it to him, but I thought I'd wait until—"

"Until I came in to check on the bunch of you?" Michael's voice came from the door behind us. "Well, you won't have to wait long. What is it you're going to give to m— dear Lord…."

I'd stepped out of his way, and Michael was staring at the drawing with a mixture of amazement, delight— and sadness, but not so much of that.

"That's… beautiful," Michael said after a long moment. "Where on Earth did you…?"

Dawn explained what she'd been doing after the funeral, and where she'd found the drawing, and Michael shook his head in amazement as she handed him the drawing.

"And you think it was the same person— the girl masquerading as a blind boy— that gave Harry the warning last night?" he asked as he looked back and forth between the picture and Dawn.

"I'm almost sure of it," Dawn said, nodding and leaning against the kitchen counter. "The waitress never really saw the face of the girl who drew this, but she arrived about an hour before the graveside service, sat through it, and left when the last of the cars left the cemetery afterwards.

"The description I got… not much help. The girl was small all over, which would help with masquerading as a boy. About five feet tall and maybe ninety-five or so pounds, small waist, small bust, slender hips, but didn't look boyish because of the waist— I think the waitress was jealous, there. Her hair was dark, maybe brown, maybe black, but mostly it was up under the sun hat she had on. The waitress said she had a little bit of a tan, too."

"That's not a lot of help, no," Buffy agreed.

"No, it isn't," Michael agreed. He smiled, waved the drawing lightly in the air, and said, "I do hope we get to meet the young lady— I need to thank her for this."

"I just wish I could figure out why someone on our side— and I'm pretty sure that's the case, between the warning last night and the gift today— won't come forward and help us more directly," I sighed.

"I can think of a couple of reasons for that," Xander said. "Look, what if Mystery Girl figures she can help more if the bad guys don't know she's helping? She might even be right. After all, if we have an ally the enemy doesn't know about, they can't exactly be ready for that ally when she does choose to help us."

"You have a good point," I agreed, but I shook my head. "I just… in combat, any surprise is not your friend."

"I don't know," Buffy said, and shot me a grin. "I mean, when you're facing a god and somebody slams her across the battlefield with a wrecking ball, giving your side a little breather? That's a _good_ surprise!"

Xander grinned, blushed a little, and said, "Well, hey— you use the tools at hand, Buff. You taught me that."

I snorted, remembering the Scooby Gang's final battle against Glorificus, and Xander's admittedly unique contribution to it. "Okay, you win. I just… I hate not knowing who this is."

"There's a surprise," Carlos said, rolling his eyes. "You know, the more I think about it, the more I think you animating that dinosaur to use against Kemmler's Disciples? That was probably easier for you than people think, because you _are_ a dinosaur, Harry."

"Ha ha," I said, and gave him a dark look. "Hey, did I ever tell you guys about the time Carlos and I went to see Lara Raith, right before we went after—"

"Okay, okay, you aren't a dinosaur," Carlos said quickly, before I could get to the 'V-word.' "Geeze, you're getting as grumpy as Morgan was."

"Smile when you say that!" I warned— and we went back to the wake.

Things were quiet for a time, and people had largely left by six o'clock, leaving Michael, the kids, his mother, me, Buffy, Murphy, Carlos, Xander and Dawn. Michael had insisted that we stay, and the kids had ganged up on us as well, so we stayed. (Maggie, Hope and Harry had their "puppy dog eyes" down to a science. No mere mortal could have withstood that particular triple threat.)

We were just starting to put the little kids to bed, about nine at night, when there came a nearly-frantic knocking on Michael's front door. His mother answered it, backed by Xander (in case of trouble— Sanya had been added to "tuck-in duty"), and a moment later, Ellen Carpenter called up, "Molly? Honey, there's a— a gentleman here to see you, and he says it's an emergency."

I heard Molly go downstairs, and stuck my head out of Maggie's room to see Carlos move to the top of the stairs behind her and stop to listen. At that, I went back to watching Buffy brush Maggie's hair, which always made me smile.

A minute later, Molly called up, "Carlos! And— and boss, you too! Downstairs, please!"

I hugged Maggie, and told her I loved her, left Buffy to do the actual tucking in, and went down the stairs in two big steps.

Molly stood near the door, Carlos next to her, both of them watching for me. Standing beside them was a young man in a stylish suit, though it was, for the first time in my memory, rumpled and dirty, even bloody, here and there— and the bowler that the Warden I'd taken to calling "Steed" (because of his taste in clothing) usually wore was nowhere in sight.

Chandler— "Steed's" real name— saw me come into the room and he burst out, "Stars and stones, you're not dead! Thank heavens— we need your bloody power, Dresden!"

"What's going on?" I asked, nodding at the young man. I liked Chandler, trusted him— and knew that Captain Anastasia Luccio, Commander of the Wardens of the White Council, trusted him, too. That opinion carries a lot of weight with me.

"A group of unknown mages of frightening power has attacked Camp Kaboom," Chandler said, referring to a training camp for new wardens by its _very_ unofficial name. "Captain Luccio was there with roughly eighty trainees and fifty actual wardens who were doing some demonstrations, and they came under assault by a force of about forty mages who— who are more powerful than any warden there!

"The Captain managed to make a brief trip through the Nevernever to get clear of the desert, into the Rocky Mountain National Park— better cover available there— but the bastards followed, and they've laid siege."

"Other Wardens?" I asked.

Chandler shook his head, his face grim. "None available— they're off after a bunch of upstart White Court vampires in Kiev. Bad lot— they create and get sustenance from anger and rage. They're inciting riots against the Wardens, and the Senior Council has had to step in."

"Crap," I sighed. I turned to call upstairs, but found Buffy standing beside me already.

"Maggie says that we have to be careful, if there's trouble," Buffy said, her eyes on mine. "I love that kid."

"Me, too," I said, nodding. "You hear enough?"

"I did. I've got your back, Harry." She grinned and held up her hands as several people drew in their breath. "Correction! I'm one of many who have your back!"

"Go, Team Dresden," Molly said, nodding. "Daddy, you understand?"

"I do," Michael said, nodding seriously. "There are young people, children, even, among those trainees, aren't there?"

"A couple dozen I'd call kids, yes, sir," Chandler said, nodding. "Sixteen, even one who's only fifteen. Another bunch of seventeen year-olds. None older than nineteen."

"All right, then," Michael said. He looked at Sanya, who'd come down while Chandler was speaking. "Sanya?"

"I will get my things," the big Russian said. "Xander, do you have your armor here?"

"I do," Xander said, heading towards the door. "It's in Michael's van."

Michael tossed Xander the keys to his van, and Murphy said, "Buffy, you called it right," and started outside with her own keys in her hand.

"Buffy," Dawn said sharply, "do you remember that mess in northern Italy? The Bernina Range?"

"Hang on, Karrin," Buffy said, holding up a hand, but not taking her eyes off of her sister. "Dawn… You won't have Xander and a bunch of other slayers for protection, not this time."

"Won't need them, if I'm smart, and I'll be smart," Dawn countered. She sighed and said, "Look, Buffy, I don't want to get hurt, okay? I'll be careful. But I can do this. You _know_ I can do this."

"Karrin, how much surveillance gear is in the car?" Buffy asked, still not looking away from Dawn.

"Most of it, actually," Karrin said, and glanced at me. "Given all that's going on, I figured it was a good idea."

"You were right," Buffy agreed. "How many radios do we have?"

"Half a dozen."

"Okay, then kit Dawn up for long-range surveillance," Buffy said, sighing in resignation. "You, me, Xander, Dawn and Sanya get radios.

"Dawn will play Watcher— literally— from someplace close to the battle, but out of range of actual combat. She can provide intel for us. She knows what to look for, and what to ignore.

"Of course… that depends on Harry's approval. This is his show, so far as I'm concerned."

"Buffy, I don't like taking her with us," I said bluntly. "But, to be honest, I don't like taking Murphy, either, and since I'm not about to tell her no— I value my unbroken bones too much— I'm not about to say no to Dawn, either.

"But you be careful, young lady— damned careful!"

"I will," Dawn said. "Karrin?"

"Come with me," Murphy said, and led Dawn outside.

"Okay," I said, looking at Chandler. "I need you to tell me as exactly as you can where the Captain took everyone, Steed. I can probably get us there quicker than you'd believe. In fact— oh, wow. Just a second…." I touched my mother's gem and muttered softly for a moment. To my amazement, I could get where I was thinking of in less than two minutes through the Ways, and the departure point was less than two blocks from Michael's place. "In fact, we can go in kind of heavily armed— though it may piss off Murphy."

"I will keep her from killing you, if it gets us out alive," Sanya volunteered.

"Guns, hand grenades, even a flamethrower, if anyone feels crazy enough to carry it," I said, and heard Molly let out a little "ah-ha" sound as she realized what I was talking about. She'd been with me, after all, when I went to the self-storage place Susan had set up as a weapons drop for her and Martin, after all. "Think that might help get us out alive?"

"A— no, never mind, I do not need to know." Sanya grinned, though, and added, "Hand grenades could be useful, yes, but I think the flamethrower will be too bulky."

The others came in then, and Dawn said, "Sis, catch," as she tossed the case with the Scythe in it to Buffy.

I turned to Murphy and said, "Murph, how would you feel about using a stash of probably very illegal weapons that I _might_ know about to help save a whole freakin' bunch of lives?"

Karrin looked up at me with suspicious eyes, then sighed, rolled her eyes, and said, "Oh, hell— Harry, if it helps save all those kids, then if you happen to have access to some rocket launchers, I'll pretend that they're legal, okay?"

"No rocket launchers," I said, and smirked a little. "Just a buttload of machine guns, some hand grenades and a flamethrower."

Murphy's eyes widened, and she opened her mouth to say something— then stopped, cocked her head, and asked, "Susan? A weapons cache?"

That's my friend— sharp as hell. "Yeah, Murph. Pretty good sized."

"Can we get there fast?"

"Five minutes, tops," I said. "Chandler, you up to walking with us, so you can help me pinpoint the Captain and the others?"

"Of course, Warden Dresden," Chandler said, standing slowly. "I've only got a couple of minor injuries, the blood… isn't mine." He looked angry for a moment, then sighed and said, "I do hope you'll let me come along for the battle?"

"Maybe," I said as we all started for the door, each of us stopping and either hugging Michael or shaking his hand as we left. "Tell me— and don't bullshit me, kid, I don't have time for it— how's your magic doing?"

"I'm quite fresh, mostly," Chandler said. "Two gates between the Nevernever and Earth, one fairly minor application of earth magic— had to block a fireball with an earthen berm— but I'm quite capable of fighting."

"Earth your big thing?" I asked.

"It's my preferred defense, sir," Chandler said as we strode along. "I tend more towards water for offense. Though I'm not averse to a bit of fire magic, not at all."

"Excellent," I said. "Now, tell me everything you can about where the Captain and the others are."

Chandler obliged, and I soon had solid information on a route that could get us there in less than five minutes— groovy.

"Okay, here we are," I said when we reached an old (but well cared for) news stand, like you used to see in almost every neighborhood way back when, and I went to the back wall, looked up and counted the beams that supported the roof of the thing. Under the fourth one, I raised my hand, channeled my will, and swept my hand to the side with a murmur of "_Apparturum_."

I was getting better at this— the hole into the Nevernever that resulted was a mostly neat oval, as tall as me. Through it, I could see a field of bright green flowers on pastel blue stems, and with leaves of the same blue.

"No menaces here besides time," I said to those behind me, "and that shouldn't be an issue. Do breathe slowly and shallowly— there's more oxygen in the air over there, and you can get sorta drunk on it. We only have about forty paces to go, though, so it shouldn't be a problem."

I led my friends through the field, stopped at a small irrigation ditch, and opened a portal there. It led us into the storage facility where Susan had made her weapons drop, though it opened on the opposite side of the place from her unit.

Sanya saw the racks of weapons around the walls and made a satisfied sound. "Israeli Galil, the seven-point-six-two AR version, very nice. And fragmentation grenades, bozhe moi!

"Harry, these will definitely help us turn the tide of the battle."

"Okay, Sanya," I said, nodding at him, "since you and Murphy are the ones who know the most about guns and such, you help get everyone outfitted."

Very shortly, all the non-wizards except Buffy had a machine gun and several pre-loaded clips, and Sanya, Xander, Murphy and Dawn all had grenades, though not everyone carried the same number. Sanya, being a big fan of overkill, took six, stuck them into various pockets and pouches on his soldiery harness-thing. Murphy took four, as did Xander, and Dawn took two, "for oh-shit-emergencies," as she put it.

"Gee, eight whole grenades left," Murphy said, shaking her head in mock amazement. "Sanya, you sure you don't want them?"

"No, I think that even I could not manage to use fourteen grenades," Sanya said. "Thank you for the offer, though."

"Smartass," she muttered. She looked at me, and said, "Where do we go to head for the battle site, Harry?"

"Back to where we started, near Michael's place," I said, "then we grab the cars and head for Lincoln Park Zoo. From there, it's a five minute walk, two transitions."

We made the reverse trip, then the trip to Rocky Mountain National Park, near the end of the Wild Basin trail. We could see signs of a battle going on below us, maybe a half a mile down the mountain.

Right away, I knew this was not going to be an easy battle, because it looked like the bad guys had taken higher ground— and were doing their best to pound the group of wardens and trainees below them into a thin red film.

"That's NOT gonna happen," I snarled to myself. I looked around and said, "All right— let's get down there."

With that, I started forward at a trot. My friends followed me down the mountain— and pretty much into the mouth of hell.


	22. Chapter 22

_Interlude:_

After her encounter with the slayer's sister, she went back to her hotel and sat and thought. If the girl had seen her, noticed her and identified her (that had been the biggest shock she'd had since her return, that three word question that had seemingly come from _nowhere_), then _they_ might have done.

It was time to move. The problem became where to go, and how to register and… oh. Right. The where, not so awful— any clean hotel would do. And the how, well… she still had the original, short-term ID that she'd started with in Las Vegas. It would do for the purpose of getting her into a cheaper hotel that would accept cash without asking a lot of questions. That should do.

As for the how… well, she'd check out, go to Union Station enter the Nevernever there, then move to another exit into Chicago— she didn't have Harry's mother's extensive knowledge of the Ways, but she did know several other exits into the Windy City. She'd be able to slip a possible tail easily enough.

She left the hotel, checked out and accepted a small refund, then caught a cab for Union Station. On the way there, she watched carefully in the cab's rearview mirror to see if she was followed, and saw… well, there was a car that seemed to be following her, a single person in the vehicle. She didn't know much about cars, but this one was a four-door sedan, not very big, and painted a medium gray. If she hadn't been looking, she might never have seen it— it sort of… blended with the rest of the traffic.

She sighed, thought about risk, and decided that she had to know if the person following her was a normal human, a wizard, or one of _them_. She raised her wizard's Sight, and glanced as briefly as she could at the following car. She sighed in relief when no supernatural powers were evident in the driver, and looking at him didn't sear her consciousness with a mixture of perfect beauty and horrible corruption.

Losing the follower was easy— the cab let her off right at the entrance to Union Station, but her shadow (and that particular term brought a wry smile to her face) had to find a place to park his car.

She entered the Nevernever and moved to a totally different part of town long before the man tailing her should have been able to park his car.

She checked into an inexpensive hotel using her Las Vegas ID— and started thinking about a more careful and long-term disguise, in case she should need to get close to Harry and his friends again.

"I wonder," she said aloud as she looked in the bathroom mirror, "how I'd look as a blond…?"

_Harry:_

As I started down the mountain towards the small valley where it seemed that the Wardens and trainees under siege were trying to make their stand against an opposing force of (according to Warden Chandler) extraordinarily powerful mages, I found myself thinking that it was nice to go into a situation like this with a lot of backup. Normally, when "the nasty" became "the deadly," I was alone, or nearly alone.

Not being alone? It's the difference between "going into hell" and "going into an ugly situation." And I'd had enough of going into hell.

About halfway down to the valley, Dawn saw this neat little formation of five boulders that sat at the base of a clump of four big pine trees, and she made a little sound of satisfaction. "I'll observe from here. Buffy, I'll route info through you— you can shout louder than most, and you'll know the jargon, since you practically invented it.

"Be careful, everyone— no dying, dying will be met with punishment detail."

I managed a smile— laughing wasn't in the cards right now— and let the others chuckle as I started on down the mountainside.

Another fifty yards on, we slowed down, took a look at what we could see of the battle, and made plans.

The situation was bad; the Wardens and trainees had done their best, but the terrain wasn't exactly perfect for defense. They'd set up in a small clearing that backed up against a cliff wall, and a few wizards— I couldn't tell if they wore warden's cloaks or not, not at the distance we were at— had set up at the top of the cliff, fifty feet above the rest, to prevent the enemy from taking that ground. Past that… nothing much was good about the ground the good guys held. It didn't have anything much in the way of cover, just eight pretty big rocks and a dozen scattered pine trees around the mostly-clear ground. That isn't enough to provide cover and concealment for a hundred and thirty people.

The enemy, on the other hand, had taken advantage of a lot of little boulder-and-tree-clumps like the one Dawn was using for cover, and were scattered around the little cliff-backed clearing in a rough half circle. They were taking turns attacking the wizards below, thus insuring that no one could break cover to return their spells without risking death. Most of what I saw the bad guys throwing was fairly standard, if very powerful; fire, lightning, spikes of frozen water, jets of water like those from a firefighter's hose, blasts of wind, mini-cyclones, bolts of raw force… nothing terribly complex or original, but, like I said… powerful. That meant that the defenders below would have to expend like amounts of power to protect themselves, and that wasn't good— the bad guys seemed to have a lot of power at their hands.

"Okay," I said, once everyone had gotten the lay of the land. "Molly, Carlos and I are at a small disadvantage, here— we can't kill these people with magic, or we'll be executed. I know Buffy doesn't like the idea of killing a human being, or Murphy. So… Xander, Sanya, I don't know how you feel about killing wizards, but I'm hoping you're at least game for chopping on them enough to knock them out."

"I have killed black wizards in the past," Sanya rumbled, sounding unhappy. "It is not something I like doing— but if it needs to be done, I shall. The sword will let me know."

"Glad to hear that," Xander muttered. "I don't like it either, Harry, but I will— to save lives, I will."

"Okay, so here's my thought," I said. "I think that Sanya, since he's been at this a long time and knows his way around this sort of fight, should stick with Molly, who's got the least experience with it— and Sanya, watch her. Molly's a sensitive, and while she's getting hardened to battle, this isn't an ordinary battle, it's practically a war.

"Molly, if you start losing it, _you back the hell off_— it'd kill your dad if something happened to you right now."

"I—" Molly's voice was hot when she started to speak, but she clamped her mouth shut after that one word, and took a long, deep breath. "You're right. Thank you, Harry. I'll keep as much distance as I can between myself and the battle."

"You've gone and grown up on me, Molly," I said, nodding at her. "Thank you.

"Chandler, you're with Molly and Sanya. I want you to take command if Molly has problems, but otherwise, let her do her thing, back her up, and help Sanya with anything you can."

"All right, Dresden," Chandler said, and he grinned at me. "Finally going to get to see if you live up to your reputation, seems like."

"Yeah, well," I said, my return grin hard, "I think that depends on which reputation you're talking about, Steed.

"Carlos, you, Murphy and Xander are a team. Murphy knows how to work with a wizard, and Xander's got a ton of experience in this sort of fight, plus, you know, one of god's own swords."

"Got it," Carlos said. "Who's in charge?"

"You are," I said, and looked at Murph. "Sorry, Karrin— but this is _our_ sort of fight."

"That's all right," Murphy said, nodding. "I get it, Harry."

"Buffy, you've got my back." I grinned at her. "I'm gonna make myself a target, kind of, so you'll have to be on your toes."

"Oh, shit," Carlos said, rolling his eyes. "Here we go again."

"No comments from the peanut gallery," I said, and took a deep breath. "Okay. Those are the teams.

"Here's the plan…."

I talked for a couple of minutes, overrode a protest or two, then stood up and said, "Okay. Folks, this one's bad, and it's for real. I owe you all for coming with— and I haven't even paid most of you back for last time yet.

"That means everyone has to be careful— I don't want anyone dying before I balance the books, I'd feel terrible about that."

"And it's all about you, isn't it, old man," Carlos sighed. "Can we go fight now, grandpa?"

"I suppose so," I said, giving him a dark look. "Though part of me hates to think of the damage we're going to do to this _virgin_ wilderness."

Carlos clamped his mouth shut and glared at me. I grinned and said, "Okay, let's go. Molly, when I give the signal…."

"I'll be ready," Molly assured me.

Buffy followed our friends with her eyes, stepped back a bit and checked in with Dawn, and warned her sister of how we intended to start the party. Then she came back to where I sat behind a boulder, scribbling on a bit of note paper. She found me a good-sized rock while I did that, then helped me secure the note I'd just written to the rock with a couple of rubber bands that I'd found in my duster pocket. When all was ready, I took the rock, held it to the tip of my staff, and muttered _"Tractis."_

When I took my hand away, the rock stayed on the end of my staff, and I leveled it at the group of Wardens that I saw behind the nearest rock formation to mine, probably a little over eighty yards away. Slowly, carefully, I gathered my will, and, instead of releasing it all at once, I sent a trickle through my staff as I murmured _"Extendére."_

The rock and the note attached to it moved slowly and steadily down towards the group of friendly wizards I'd chosen, and if any of the enemy groups saw it, they didn't let on; it eventually reached a point right over the three wizards I could see, and as one of them reached for it, I relaxed my spell— and it dropped into his hands.

After that, I sat back and waited, while Dawn, from her position further up the hill, observed the men I'd sent the note to, and kept Buffy informed.

"One of them's gone to the cliff wall with your note," Buffy said after a moment. "Handing it to a young woman, brown hair, pretty… who is now glaring up the hill and biting her thumb in our general direction." Buffy gave me an arch look and said, "Friend of yours, huh?"

"We dated, but it didn't work out," I replied casually. "She's probably pissed I didn't tell her I was alive before this.

"What's she doing now?"

"Apparently, she's flipping you off in about a double dozen languages," Buffy said, sounding amused. "And now… okay, she's giving orders, and it looks like she's going to go along with it."

"Excellent," I said, and waited a little.

Three or four minutes later, a single, tiny ball of glowing green light shot up the hill from the defenders' clearing, passing maybe thirty yards to one side. To the enemy, it probably looked like a missed wild shot. To me, it looked like the words "game on" in big neon letters.

I stood up, walked around to the front of my clump of boulders, belting my duster closed as I did so— might as well have all the protection I could, right?— and I stopped in front of the boulders and looked for a spot roughly central to the various places where I'd spotted bad guys taking cover. Buffy stayed back a ways, out of sight, mostly, so she'd have a chance to surprise the bad guys too, if this didn't work like I thought it would. (And that _never_ happens, things not working out like I thought, right?)

I found my spot, and I gathered up my will as I targeted the innocent piece of ground. Then I pointed my staff that way and said, in a conversational tone, "Fuego."

Fire jetted away from my staff, lit that piece of ground on fire— and the bad guys started looked around for where it came from. I helped them out a little, stepped forward and bellowed at the top of my lungs, "ALL RIGHT, LISTEN UP!

"I AM HARRY DRESDEN, WARDEN OF THE WHITE COUNCIL OF WIZARDS— AND EVERY LAST ONE OF YOU IS UNDER ARREST! COME QUIETLY, OR IT WILL GO BADLY FOR YOU!"

I counted to three, slowly, then dove for the ground. Even as I hit the ground with my face down, my eyes closed and my hands over my ears, I heard someone scream "KILL HIM!"

Then there was a virtual _explosion _of light and noise taking place in about the space my head had occupied a couple of seconds before. Flashes of brilliant light in every color, strobing, whirling spotlights, a single sustained ball of brilliant white light, and an accompaniment of every loud, obnoxious sound you ever heard. Car alarms, sirens of all kinds, bad death metal bands, cats fighting, fingernails on chalkboards— all amplified to painfully loud.

Then Molly, ever full of surprises, ended the whole mess with a loud, clear bugle call for "charge!"

"Thatta girl!" I muttered as I stood up and looked around at the screaming, confused, blinded-and-deafened wizards who hadn't been prepared for that, like Team Dresden and the other good guys had been. I heard Buffy laugh at Molly's little ending flourish as I started for the nearest clump of bad-guy wizards with my staff in a two-handed fighting grip.

I arrived just as one of them, who had apparently been looking off in another direction, cut the throat of a cat, killing it inside the magic circle he'd created. I swung my staff at him, cracked him across the back of the head as he muttered a name— apparently for the third time. I was just a little too late.

Something boiled up out of the ground, formed itself into a powerful, apelike thing (though with no hair at all) with the head of a hyena (also hairless) and long, Freddy-Krueger-wannabe claws on the ends of its fingers. It looked around and saw me, made a growling sound, then spoke.

"I see you, wizard," it said in a voice like the high-pitched whine of a mosquito— only actually more annoying than that, if you can believe it. "I am Zyed! I was summoned to kill you, and I will EAT YOUR HEART!"

"Hey, Zyed?" I said, sighing and leveling my staff it's direction. "Shut up now, okay?"

The demon Zyed howled in anger, crouched to leap at me—

—and I snarled "Fulminos!" as he did so, sending a bolt of silver-blue lightning into the thing from my staff. Zyed blew up really nicely, showering me and the three cowering warlocks that had been with the one I already knocked out in ectoplasm. Gross, but at least it disappeared quickly and didn't leave a stain.

"Okay, now, that was just sad," Buffy said as she moved in to help me knock out the remaining three wizards in this group. "Seriously, Harry, are all demons as wimpy as that in this world?"

"No, that one was more the exception than the rule," I told her as I started towards the next clump of blind and deaf wizards. "Trust me— that was not a representative sample."

The wizards from down below had swarmed forward after the enemy as well, since they'd been warned what was coming by the note I'd sent down. With a couple of minor exceptions like that punk who'd managed to summon Zyed-the-demonic-joke, the enemy pretty much went down very, very easily. The wardens and trainees moved among them quickly, bound and gagged them, and took the wands and staffs of those that had them.

I was just turning away from tying up some punk warlock with strips from his own cut up robe when a woman's voice, cheerful despite the infusion of sheer irritation in it, said, "Warden Dresden, it is good to see you again. Now turn around so I can kick you in the stomach for letting us all worry for so long!"

"Captain Luccio," I said, turning around and taking the offered hand of Anastasia Luccio, commander of the Wardens. "Nice to see you, too. And you're welcome."

"Thank you, Harry," she said, her voice genuinely warm. Then she punched me in the arm, not very playfully, and said, "Where the hell have you been? People were saying you were killed in Chicago, but I… uh. That isn't… that can't be…!"

I looked over my shoulder, saw Xander striding our way, Carlos and Murphy with him, and Buffy, with the Scythe on her shoulder, had stepped out to wave him to us.

"_Dio,_ Harry!" Anastasia said, her voice full of wonder. "Is that really… Buffy? And Xander?"

"Yeah," I said, my tone smug. "Dawn's around here somewhere, playing spotter. I met them in the Nevernever— while I was coming back from the dead."

"Coming back from the— all right, that's just not funny, Harry—"

"And I'm not joking," I said, my tone serious. "But we can talk about this later. Where the hell did these bastards come from, and where—"

"Harry!" Murphy called, her voice worried. "Dawn's calling in— someone's opened a gate up near where you started the fight, and something's coming out of it! LOTS of somethings!"

Buffy and the others with radios had all moved off, away from us wizard types and our radio-jamming selves, and were listening. While they did that, Anastasia started giving orders in a low voice.

Buffy called back to me, "Harry! Big things, built along the lines of gorillas, sort of, but leaner. Gray or black skin, muscles from hell, claws, bone spurs on faces and joints."

I went cold, all over. Nearby, I heard Carlos Ramirez, who'd been with me the one time I'd faced the things I thought were being described, say, "Oooooh, shit."

I whirled to Anastasia and said, "Captain, call everyone in— get them to the top of that cliff somehow, then destroy what you used to get up there. That may slow these things a little bit."

"What are they?" she asked, looking back and forth between me and Carlos.

"Some sort of… primal ghoul." I shook my head. "Captain, you've seen Ramirez's shield, right? The one that purees whatever passes through it?"

"Yes, of course," she answered. "What does that—"

"I saw one of these things go through that shield, all the way through— then watched it regenerate and get up to start fighting again a few minutes later." She stared for a moment, and I nodded. "No joke, Ana. Take the prisoners and get your people to higher ground, _now_."

"What about your people?" she asked.

"Murphy!" I called. "You remember these things? From the Raith Deeps?"

"Yes!" she called back, even as she ran her hands over her gear, checking to make sure everything was where it was supposed to be.

"You willing to go up the cliff with the Captain and the trainees?"

"Screw that!" Murphy yelled. "I'm here, I'm fighting. I'll keep Xander's back clean for him."

"See?" I said. "Not a lot of point to even asking, really.

"Can you spare a few combat-tested wardens? Ones who are pretty fresh, or as fresh as possible? And let me keep Steed? Uh, Chandler?"

"Diamante, Janduski, Killian, Marshall and Potter, over here!" Luccio called, and three women and two men trotted over.

"You have a _Warden_ named _Potter!"_ I asked, astounded. "That's… wrong!"

"No auror jokes if you want to keep your head on your shoulders," said a short, powerfully built Black man with short, almost-buzzed hair and brown eyes, his accent thick, almost cockney. "I swear, I'm killing the next wizard who makes that joke."

"I'm a wizard named Harry," I said to him drily. "I know better."

"Too right," he agreed while I looked the others over. "Sorry, hadn't thought about it that way."

Diamante was a swarthy man, average height, slender, with dark hair and eyes. He looked vaguely like that guy that played Joseph Adama's gangster brother in Caprica, only shorter. He nodded my way, flashed me a grin.

Janduski was a short, round woman with a face that showed lots of smile lines, and an aura of competent strength. Her blond hair seemed to be frizzy almost to the point of being alive, and her eyes were bright green. Her staff was longer than most, almost seven feet, and made from some wood that appeared almost red.

Killian was a tiny little thing with classic Irish looks. She couldn't have been an inch over four-eleven, might have weighed ninety-five pounds. She had small breasts and hips, but a tiny waist de-emphasized that. Long, wavy red hair, gathered into a tail and wrapped in a green scarf to keep it out of her face, hung most of the way to her butt, and her eyes were a peculiar greenish-gold color. A spray of freckles went across her nose and onto both cheeks. She wore a Chinese long sword, a jian, on her back, and I wondered if it was one of the Warden Swords that Captain Luccio used to be able to make, or just a weapon she liked.

Marshall was of average height, moved like a dancer, and was built for it— slender, but with very visible muscle tone. Her black hair hung mostly straight to a point just below her shoulders, curled under just a bit at the ends. Blue eyes met mine, assessed me, and decided I was all right in a half a second or so. She smiled, and went from "very pretty" to "gorgeous" just that fast. She wore a short sword on her left hip, and carried no staff, unlike the others. Instead, a whip hung on her right hip, somehow gleaming like metal, despite being leather, and I could see the runes traced into it, knew it was her power focus. Different… and oddly sexy.

"Warden Dresden is going to try to hold the ground against the incoming creatures," Luccio said. "We need to get some distance before we try moving into the Nevernever again, after the creatures we encountered there last time. Add in that these 'primal ghouls' are coming from the Nevernever, and we definitely aren't crossing over here.

"You five, assist him however you can. He is in command."

The five wizards nodded, and Anastasia turned to me. "Don't split up Killian and Marshall if you don't have to. Together they are… more than the sum of their parts."

I looked at them, really _noticed_ the way they stood together, and smiled. "Battle couple, huh? Works for me."

Marshall blushed a little, but nodded and smiled as Killian said, "Well, couple first, then we found out how well we work together, and… here we are."

"Good deal," I said, and looked up the hill. There looked to be a great, black mass of primal ghouls, and I sighed and said, "Get going, Captain— we'll hold them here as long as we can before we follow you."

"Be careful, all of you," Anastasia said, and drew her sword to salute us before turning and heading for the earth-and-ice stairway to the top of the cliff that several wizards were putting the finishing touches on.

"Buffy!" I called. She turned to look at me, came closer when I waved her over. I waited until I could speak to her with my voice down, then said, "Tell Dawn to do a wide sweep, look for wizards— the one who sent these things after me last time was not the sort to send them and stay away. He's probably around here somewhere, and there may be others. This has the feel of a deliberate offensive, and I doubt the Black Council is going to give up easily."

"Got it, boss," Buffy said, and quirked a small, worried smile at me before trotting off to get out of what Butters liked to call my Murphyonic field. (Not like he'd ever admit to naming it that around Karrin, but he meant it for Murphy's Law, not her.)

"All right, you five," I said, turning to the new wardens. "What we're facing here are ghouls that are bigger, stronger and faster than normal— and they regenerate from damn near anything, and do so pretty fast. Your best bet is mass destruction that dismembers, though anything that destroys parts— fire, disintegration, plain old fashioned ripping limb from limb— will do in a pinch.

"Conserve your strength as best you can— there are probably wizards around here waiting to bat cleanup, and they won't be wimps.

"Killian, Marshall— you want a front line spot, somewhere in the middle, or rear guard?"

"Front line," Killian said immediately, her eyes gleaming. "I'm good with dismembering things, and I've got some serious kung fu to back up my magic.

"Elaine, I think we want mud. Lots of mud."

"Okay, Rose," Marshall said, nodding seriously. "You'll get it."

"Any of the rest of you good with earth?" I asked.

Diamante nodded, said in heavily accented English, "It is my primary magic, Commander Dresden."

I blinked. I was a regional commander, sure, and the title was my technical due, but no one had ever used it before. "Harry, please. All of you.

"Diamante, I want you on rear guard— you may have to get us up that cliff in a hurry, if it gets too nuts.

"Potter, Janduski, I need one of you to go up the mountain a ways— Buffy will explain where— and escort down a young lady who's playing spotter for us. Who's better with veils?"

"I can veil almost as well as Warden Carpenter," Janduski said, her accent faint and sort of Germanic to my ears.

"Then it's you," I said, nodding. "The lady's name is Dawn. Buffy will tell her you're coming. Make her keep up a running commentary on what she sees, and you decide when it's time to come down— got it?"

"Yes, Harry." She looked around, spotted Buffy, and moved that way, shaking her head just a little in wonder.

"Potter… you got some offense?" I asked seriously.

The young Warden grinned and said, "I've got all you could want, guv. I ain't done much of nothin' today, the Captain was holding me in reserve. And I've got a couple of lovely mass-destruction spells hidin' up my sleeve."

"Excellent," I said, and grinned at him. "You follow American basketball?"

"Nah, I don't bother with sports," he scoffed. "Why?"

"I don't either, but I think that's where I'm getting the term I'm gonna use for your job," I said, then frowned. "Or maybe it was football… well, never mind. You're going to be our 'free safety.' You decide where you're needed most, you go there, you help out. Got it?"

"Got it," Potter said. He looked up the hill, his grin turned hard and he said, "Here they come!"

I looked around— and almost whimpered. There had to be a hundred of the damned primal ghouls coming down the hill in great leaps and bounds. I bit back my desire to run away, called, "Buffy, with me!" and started forward to meet them, my staff in one hand, my blasting rod in the other.

I felt Buffy fall in beside me as we moved up the hill, passed between Molly, Steed and Sanya on one side and Carlos, Murphy and Xander on the other. We stopped maybe three paces forward of them— and the ghouls were on us.

The darkness of the hillside diminished as, to either side of us, Sanya and Xander drew their holy swords, which flared immediately with a pure, white light.

I saw the nearest ghoul heading for me leap, and I aimed my staff just a little ways ahead of it and, as it entered the space in front of me, snapped, _"Forzaré!"_ A bolt of force, not too hard, but enough to halt its forward progress and even knock it a tiny bit backwards, hit it at the base of the throat. It flipped as it went down, but landed on hands and feet in a gargoyle-like crouch.

Before it could leap again, Buffy was on it, feet moving in a constant series of kicks that, to my amazement, actually rocked the thing back, and kept it going backwards. She pressed it, and I looked up the hill for another target while she did so.

I saw another one coming, heading for one of us, but I couldn't tell which one. Not like it mattered. I did this complicated little thing that I'd spent hours in my office practicing, and got it off perfectly. I planted my staff at arm's length with my arm out at a slight angle, let go of the thing, pulled my head back, and, as it rolled down my arm and across my chest, I tossed my blasting rod from left hand to right, then angled my left arm down some and caught my staff in my left hand.

Damn, that had to look cool— and here I was with no handy mirror.

I raised my blasting rod, aimed at the spot where the charging ghoul would be in a second, and growled, "Fuego!"

A jet of bright yellow flame about the diameter of my two thumbs jetted out and caught the charging ghoul full in the face. It's head pretty much exploded as it's brain turned to steam, which, okay, was disgusting. I'd be sick later.

I glanced at Buffy just as she did this utterly gorgeous (and, given the abilities of the monsters we were fighting, brilliant) move. She had kicked the ghoul senseless, and it was reeling around like a drunken sailor. As it staggered towards her, she did this big spin, leading with the Scythe, and leapt up as she swung. The blade of her weapon passed through the ghoul's neck like a scalpel through pudding— then her right foot, moving on the same trajectory, caught the thing's head before it could fall out of the way, and sent it _flying_ off to one side and down the hill. Immediately, Buffy chopped off an arm, then the other, then managed to get both legs in _one swipe_.

I'd understood that Buffy was strong, strong like Thomas had been when calling on his demon— but I'd never seen her use that before, not really. Now… damned if it wasn't a combination of scary-cool— and kinda sexy.

As the ghoul's trunk hit the ground, Buffy snatched up the arms and legs one at a time and flung each in a different direction, flung them so far that that ghoul wouldn't be a problem for a _while_.

I fried another ghoul, getting this one through the spine, and Buffy beheaded it and kicked the head away, got the arms and did the same, didn't bother with the legs on that one.

We repeated variations on that theme for a couple of minutes, put a lot of ghouls out of service, then I glanced around. I caught sight of Xander and Carlos side-by-side, Murphy moving along behind them, using her weapon to slow down incoming ghouls so that they wouldn't hit all at one time. Xander had his sword out, the blade moving in surprisingly delicate arcs as he neatly beheaded the ghoul before him— and I saw the thing begin to rot even as it fell. _Amoracchius's_ power to level the playing field insured that any wound Xander did didn't heal, and a killing blow was permanent. I assumed that _Esperacchius_ would do the same— and that any wizards watching would see that, and try to take them out, fast. I wasn't sure that would work— but it might.

Buffy and I had a lull, and I said, "Got anything new from Dawn?" as I looked around for Sanya, Molly and Steed.

"She's pinpointed two solitary wizards in two different places, and one group of four," Buffy said, and she wasn't even breathing hard after the fighting she'd done. "I don't want to point— they're observing the battle, and if I point, they might notice."

"Okay, well, tell her to watch them as best she can," I said. I'd found Sanya's group, and sure enough, he was working as efficiently as Xander— more so, because he was a bit better with his sword. "Xander and Sanya are probably at risk from attack— the ghouls they kill aren't getting back up."

Buffy's eyes widened, she nodded, and moved off a ways to get out of my interference zone. While she did, I looked around for the remaining Wardens who were here— and saw Potter off to one side, a little left of Sanya's group on my left, and he had four ghouls up in the air in a dimly glowing construct of force that looked kind of like a four-way tire iron with a claw on each end. Each claw held a ghoul by the ankles, and Potter had a broadsword he'd produced from somewhere— probably on his back, under his cloak— in both hands, held up at the height of the ghouls. As the construct spun, he'd take off chunks of ghoul, and after each full cycle, he'd step forward. Gross— but effective.

Then I found Killian and Marshall— and I stared in amazement and no little delight as they disrupted the hell out of the second wave of ghouls.

Marshall had produced a huge sphere of water from— well, somewhere, probably a nearby underground stream, and as she worked quickly but carefully to infuse it into the ground maybe fifty feet in front of her and Killian, Killian was picking off ghouls with balls of fire the size of the big marbles… what were they called? Aggies?

Anyway, Killian sent the things out after ghouls, fired one, then turned away and fired another— and as I watched, the first one homed in on the ghoul she'd sent it after, veered up as the thing tried to leap over it, and detonated right between its eyes.

"How the hell did she make them home in on targets?" I asked the air.

Before I could think any further, Marshall seemed to finish what she was doing, and she was left with a sphere of water as tall as she was, and as wide as that, too. She called something to Killian, and then released her left hand from her whip— she'd been holding it doubled in both hands— and snapped it at the ball of water.

The ball went sailing forward, past the ground where Marshall had done… whatever, and just before it reached the line of advancing ghouls (who were coming more slowly, after seeing their fellow monsters go down and _not_ get better), Killian snapped a word and a bolt of fire as big around as she was jetted towards the ball of water.

The resulting explosion of steam scalded the hell out of the incoming ghouls, if their howls of pain were any indication— and it blinded them.

I saw Killian and Marshall back up rapidly, and I checked to make sure the others were not advancing, which they weren't.

Then I heard the howls of the ghouls in the steam change pitch, become howls of confusion— and ghouls started coming out of the steam, not running or leaping— but sliding, some on their backs, some on their bellies, even some on their sides.

Buffy laughed, and said, "Mudslide! The one with the whip— she pushed all that water under the grass, made the layer of dirt around the roots so runny that it won't hold. They hit the grass there, it goes out from under them, and they churn up even more mud. I love it!"

"Ditto," I agreed. I started picking off ghouls as they slid our way, one at a time, with the minimum expenditure of energy. Buffy could dismember and dispose of the ones I downed, and I wanted to save energy— because I knew it couldn't be this easy. Not with other wizards, almost certainly members of the Black Council, waiting around.

Why did I have to be right?

Buffy frowned, pressed a hand to the earphone in her ear, and moved away from me at a trot. She listened for a moment, then whipped around, stared behind us and said, "Shit!

"Harry! There's a gateway to the Nevernever opening behind us, and it's HUGE!"

I spun around and saw a huge rectangle of rainbow light, at least thirty feet high by fifty feet wide, suddenly clear up, showing what looked like a mist-shrouded jungle of some kind. Then… things came out of the mist and through the gateway.

They stood maybe twenty-five feet at the shoulders, and their heads were mounted on short, thick necks that jutted forward, not up, so that the tops of their heads were at or a little below that level.

Their bodies were broad and powerful, their arms long, hanging a little below their knees, and their legs were short and thick. They resembled men in general shape and design, but only resembled. Their skin looked more like… well, like greasy chitin, and I could see that they had as many sharp angles as curves. Their hands had four long fingers and _two_ opposable thumbs, as well as chitinous spurs all over the backs and knuckles. And their mouths… the mouths looked wrong. Wide slits with no lips, and with things that looked like mandibles (or maybe paired stingers) occasionally flickering out of their mouths and clicking together. Their eyes were faceted, but protruded only a little bit from their sockets, and faced forward like a human's.

Each one held a spear that looked somewhere between twenty-five and thirty-five feet long, the shafts maybe six inches thick on the average, and the tips shiny black rock that were a foot or so long and six to eight inches wide.

They came out, and more came behind them, and they formed something like ranks, kept doing so— until there were at least forty of the giant mantis men standing there. Then the gate closed, and from behind them came the buzzing, warbling voice of Cowl, the one member of the Black Council that I had encountered more than once.

"I see you brought friends, Dresden," Cowl called. "So it only seemed fair that I even the odds somewhat.

"Kill them! Kill them ALL!"

The mass of giant mantis men raised their heads as one, and let out this buzzing, clicking, ululating shriek that chilled me to the marrow— and they charged us, even as the we heard the howl of more über-ghouls on the hill above us.

Oh, shit.


	23. Chapter 23

_Interlude:_

She decided against any major changes in her appearance that she couldn't undo easily. (Besides, blonde would be unbelievable with the rest of her features, and might stand out in the wrong way, actually draw attention.) In the end, she went with a wig, a pair of oversized, zero-prescription glasses, and actually using makeup, instead of not bothering. She even went a little over the top on the makeup, like she was insecure about her looks— it seemed a nice touch to her.

Late Saturday night, she went to Harry's neighborhood via public transportation, walked slowly through his neighborhood as though lost, and saw no activity at his brownstone. After a brief time of aimless wandering, with occasional stops to look at a piece of paper in her hand and up at buildings, she decided that none of _them_ were watching for him, at least not here, or not now. Maybe they had a tail on him and knew where he had gone…?

She turned to go back to the nearest el station, and saw a man coming towards her with purposeful strides. For a moment, she nearly panicked and walked away— then she felt the aura of power, and knew that it was, again, the man who'd bought her breakfast a couple of days ago.

"Hello," she said as he approached. She saw the concerned look on his face, and asked, "What's wrong? Is it… something I can help with?"

He smiled a little at that, and nodded. "Yes. It is something you can help with. I hope that you will— but it is your choice, of course."

"What's the problem?"

He told her, and her blood went cold.

"I… yes." She nodded firmly. "Yes, of course I'll help. But… may I help my own way?"

"Of course you may," the man said, and smiled a little more widely, looked actually amused for a moment. "You wish to preserve your… moment?"

"I do," she agreed, blushing.

"I understand," he said, and rested a hand on her shoulder lightly. "Thank you, sister."

She jerked her head up and stared at him in shock, and the man laughed softly.

"Yes," he said, nodding firmly. "I so name you— because you are the essence of she whom I remember, now. Your path is different, now— but I know that you will walk it as you would have… once upon a day."

"I— that's— thank you!"

He only nodded, bowed his head a little to her, and turned to walk away.

She started looking for a cab, determined to get back to her hotel and get to work immediately.

_Harry:_

Forty giant humanoids built along insectivorous lines charging at you while maybe a like number of primal ghouls come at you from behind? That strikes me as a good reason to panic.

But nobody actually panicked. I heard Sanya call out, "Xander, hold the upslope. I will work downhill," and glanced back to see Sanya headed my way, a small smile on his face.

"Dresden, you can hold against the wizard, yes?" Sanya asked when he was close enough to be heard without shouting.

"Maybe, but only maybe!" I replied as I turned to face the mantis-guys. "He's out of my league, Sanya!"

"Try hard," Sanya said somberly from behind me— and I heard metallic noises, twin clinks and another, harder to qualify sound, sort of a "fwip," and two somethings moving through the air. "One thousand one, one thousand two—"

The "two" was followed by a grunt of effort, and I saw two round things arc out from behind me, moving in a long, flat trajectory for a ways before dropping, the one on the left maybe forty feet in front of the charging monsters, the one on the right in among the first rank.

"Down!" Sanya said, and I got it.

I hit the dirt just before the two grenades went off. The sound was incredibly loud, even after Molly's patented "Sound and Fury" spell, and the mantis-men as a group scream-roared in surprise— and maybe six of them went down for the count. Another six of the front rank were injured, some badly, all slowed.

"Why must they always be so tough?" Sanya asked the air as he climbed to his feet. "A like group of men, few would be alive, let alone moving."

"Fight now, analyze later!" I said as I worked my way to one knee and took aim with a my staff, used a spell I'd been toying with, but never used in combat before. _"Fulminos diruptum!"_ I bellowed, and a ball of sizzling blue-white energy leapt from my staff, jetted downhill, and hit the leading mantis-man in the gut.

Immediately, the ball erupted into jagged lines of electrical energy that leapt from the initial target to the several of his fellows nearest him. He fell over, cooked and crispy— but the others, while they fell, immediately started clambering to their feet and moving on up the hill, following more slowly than those who ran past them— but following. They staggered and jittered, but they came on.

"Crap," I sighed. "Not worth the extra energy output."

I stood then, shifted my blasting rod back to my right hand, and said, "Let's see if they can take the heat."

I focused on the fastest approaching mantis-man, realized he was WAY too close for comfort, and used the spike of fear that caused to super-charge the spell I tossed at him. _"Fuego!"_ I snapped, and a wrist-thick blast of orange-yellow fire hit the thing in the chest, right below its chin.

It didn't penetrate far, and I'm pretty sure that all I did was hurt the thing enough to _really_ piss it off.

"Crap!" I yelled, and I ducked as it charged at me, spear out and probing. I felt the spear glance off my right upper arm, unable to penetrate the defensive magics on my duster.

Then the thing tried to bite me. Its head came down, I saw the pincher-stinger things come out of the slit-like mouth, and realized just how wide that slit was. I only had a second, but adrenaline always does wonders for my aim; I snarled _"Fuego!"_ again, this time with the blasting rod pointed right into its mouth.

A more narrow beam of fire, a brighter yellow than usual for being concentrated, shot into the mantis-man's mouth— and a jet of smoke and steam came out a microsecond later, even as its eyes half-melted-half-popped. Despite the incredible stench of the smoke and steam, I managed not to vomit as I dove to my left, since Buffy was fighting one of them on my right.

I had about two seconds to look around, and I used them, taking in all that I could of the battle, which was a lot, given how intensely concentrated my mind gets in situations like those.

On my left, Sanya's blade was out, giving off light, and cutting through bad-guy-chitin like it was wet tissue paper, while Chandler, his sword cane glowing an eerie purple-blue, would occasionally point at a mantis-man, and seemingly leech the water out of it via magic. It killed them, but it looked kind of disgusting. Molly, pale but determined, was looking down at an approaching monster and doing… something. Her mouth would open some, I'd see those two little lines between her eyebrows that popped up when she was concentrating, then she'd exhale and start over.

On my immediate right, Buffy was administering a savage beat-down to a mantis-man, mixing blows from the scythe with kicks that actually staggered the monster, and never mind how odd it looked to see a hundred-and-five-or-ten-pound woman sending what had to be close to fifteen hundred pounds of monster reeling from a back-round kick.

Further to the right, Potter and joined Killian and Marshall, and was watching upslope while they concentrated downslope. He was using a mixture of spirit magic (in the form of nigh-invisible force) and air magic (little cyclones) to disrupt the few ghouls who were getting past Carlos, Xander and Murphy. Killian and Marshall had gone shoulder-to-shoulder, and were getting nuts on the damage department; Marshall was flinging rocks from about basketball-sized to about fridge-sized down at the mantis-men, and as they got close, Killian would hit the rocks with beams of white-hot fire— and the rocks would explode, doing some pretty serious damage. Ana had been right— separating those two would've been stupid.

Slightly upslope, Xander had stepped forward about three long paces in front of Ramirez and Murphy, and he was doing major damage to the remaining primal ghouls with _Amoracchius,_ moving like one of those Chinese sword-dancers you see, swinging _Amoracchius_ around like it was a wiffle ball bat, not four pounds of deadly steel. Behind him, Carlos and Murphy were working to keep Xander's flanks free of attackers. They'd both settled on similar strategy, it looked like. Carlos was hoarding his magical energy, using the fifty caliber Desert Eagle he carried to blow holes in the monsters, aiming for hips or knees when he could, taking a gut shot when he had to. This generally slowed the ghouls on his side down enough for Xander to dispatch his current target without being hurried or pressed.

Murphy, on the other side, was taking slow, measured shots at the ghouls, generally hitting them in the head, though she did take a few shots at the (OW!) groin when a head shot was awkward. All those years of practice and competition shooting really paid off— she didn't miss _once,_ Carlos told me later. She'd put a ghoul down for the count, or at least for a minute or so, and while they were regenerating, Xander generally found time to give them a more permanently fatal wound via _Amoracchius_.

I finished my look around, saw another mantis-man headed straight for me, maybe four of his steps from being close enough to clobber me. I didn't think, just emulated Murphy; these things wore clothes, a sort of simple tunic that hung to their knees. So it seemed reasonable to me that they had something to cover….

I aimed my blasting rod at a point halfway between the bulges of hipbones that showed when it moved, and snapped, _"Fuego!"_

Mantis-men… have nards.

The jet of flame hit squarely in the target area, and the thing went down first beating at itself to put out the flames (I winced in actual sympathy at that), then clutching at itself— and making a high, reedy sound that pretty much any male human could sympathize with. (It happens to all of us males sooner or later, and usually sooner. And later. Dammit.)

I took a moment to aim at its mouth-slit and gave it a mercy shot, then looked downhill— and got scared.

Another gate to the Nevernever was opening as I watched, and I figured that another bunch of monsters on top of what we already had going was a really bad idea— there were still fifteen or so mantis-men and a bunch of super ghouls, we needed more monsters like we needed for the Red Court as a whole to come back from the dead.

"Buffy, follow me!" I snapped, and I started downhill, heading for the shadowy figure of Cowl at a dead run, which, given my height and long legs, was some serious speed.

Cowl was a powerful wizard, more powerful than me— but he was also pretty damned smart. So he'd probably husband his strength, save it back for when he really needed it. That meant that, if he had defenses going, they'd probably be against the things I normally used as offense— fire, force, and maybe blasts of air. I wasn't much on earth magic, and I was less than that on water magic— but that didn't mean I didn't have options, it just meant that I had to use my imagination.

So I did.

I took my staff in my right hand, tucked away my blasting rod, and charged down the hill like a madman, ran flat out. Cowl, true to my hopes, was too focused on his magic to spot little old me. I assumed he had defenses in place— he was evil, not stupid— so didn't try any of my standard magical attacks. No, I went for something a little more subtle— if we can define subtle kind of loosely, anyway.

"This," I grumbled as I prepped the thing I had in mind, "is probably going to hurt."

I had been running at a good-sized boulder, probably at least as big as the Blue Beetle had been, that was partly buried in the slope of the hill on the uphill side. So I could get a good run up onto it, and a good jump off of it— and just like that, I was a good twenty feet over the ground below me, as my leap carried me up and out over ground that was sloping down and away from me.

I gathered my will, channeled it through the oak of my staff, and as I started down for the ground, maybe ten yards from Cowl, I channeled everything I could into a blast of raw force that I shaped like one of those big, arrow-shaped plow blades that you see on the giant plows on the interstate when there's a blizzard on.

I waited until I was about to hit the ground staff-first, then screamed _"FORZARÉ!"_ at the top of my lungs, and sent every bit of magic I could find in me into the rocky ground maybe twenty-five feet from Cowl— as raw force.

Even as I flew back up and away, the resulting explosion of rocks and dirt hit Cowl like a shotgun blast from a gun as tall as me. He screamed, the gateway he'd been opening collapsed— and Cowl fell to the ground, bleeding from a double-dozen rips and tears in his body. I also saw that he'd gotten a good shot to the face, and it had torn most of his mask off. I got my first real look at his face.

He was my age, or looked it, and vaguely familiar, somehow. He had a long, lean, wolfish face, long, thick black hair, and dark eyes. His chin was firm, his jaw a little jutting, his eyes deep-set, his nose a shade too sharp and prominent. His mouth was wide, and his teeth very white. (I could tell that last because he had bared them at me in a snarl.)

I hit the ground, managed to roll out of the worst of my twenty-plus foot fall, and came up on one knee facing Cowl.

"Hi there!" I growled. I leveled my staff at his head and said, "Remember me!"

Then I fired off that explosive lightning spell I'd invented, the one I'd used pretty successfully on the mantis-men— only I jerked my staff down and aside at the last minute, hit the ground slightly behind and too the left of Cowl, where I could see bare rock….

The lightning went through the ground, bypassed the faint, shimmering shield that I had seen glimmering in front of my opponent— and zapped him good. I managed to stand— it wasn't easy, my left ankle had been twisted or something when I came down from the recoil on my big force spell— and as I did, Cowl looked up at me and snarled, "I remember you, Dresden!"

His right hand came up and he snarled, _"Kaalak!"_ as he made a gesture like he was sweeping a dry spill off of a table.

Something that felt like a freaking freight train slammed into my chest, and I went flying back and up— WAY up, and a lot of back, too.

Oh. Right. He was way more powerful than me. Next time, Harry, less smartass, more ball-kicking.

Assuming there was a next time. Hell, if not for the defense of my duster, I might not have lived to go flying, even— that spell had packed about a ton of punch. As it was, I had no way to stop myself, I'd pretty much just run the magic batteries dry— that snowplow spell had been a _doozy _and the explosive ball o'lightning after had not been small— and I was falling back-first, unable to get turned around because my head was spinning.

Then I hit… water? A lot of water? Where the hell had that come from?

The water stopped my fall non-fatally, though I was afraid I'd drown, because I hadn't known it was there, hadn't taken a deep breath, had exhaled just before impact, in fact—

And then the water just… fell away, and I dropped maybe a foot to the grass-covered ground.

"Comman—Harry? Are you okay?"

I looked up into the concerned face of Elaine Marshall, and I managed, "I'll live— and I'm guessing I have you to thank for that?"

"Well, I mean— I saw you falling, so I just gathered up all the water I could, and got it under you, I hope you're not mad?" she asked, looking a little worried.

I looked at her with my jaw hanging down for a second, sat up, then I said, "Oh, yes, I'm absolutely furious, Warden Marshall, don't you dare ever save my stupid life again, you fool, you fool!"

She blinked once— then giggled. That made me laugh— and that made me notice how laughing hurt. "Ow." I grimaced. "Get back to the fight, Warden. I'll be okay."

Which is when a body— I had time to notice that it was Cowl, and he was _real_ unconscious— hit the ground a couple feet from me, and Buffy, who'd dropped him there, threw herself at me, knocked me backwards to the ground, her arms around my neck, and her legs straddling my stomach.

"Dammit, Harry, don't you ever scare me like that again!" Buffy scolded against my ear. She pulled back to glare at me, her eyes met mine—

—and suddenly, she was kissing me. Hard. Urgently.

I forgot how much I hurt. I forgot about the battle that should be still going on around us. I forgot that she'd apparently captured Cowl, and that this could be a huge, huge edge for the good guys, if we could make him talk. I forgot how incredibly fast Buffy had to have moved to have knocked Cowl out and gotten up to where I'd landed that fast. I forgot that I was soaking wet in forty-five degree weather.

I forgot everything but Buffy's mouth on mine, her toned, lean, still-very-female body pressed against mine, the sheer heat of her, and the passion she put into that kiss. I did my best to match that passion, my arms wrapping around her waist and pulling her closer, until I couldn't get her any closer, then just held her there, held her and kissed her like I hadn't kissed anyone in… well, in too damned long.

I have no idea how long that kiss went on. It felt like several minutes— and also like a couple of nanoseconds, like nowhere _near_ long enough. Finally, though, Buffy pulled back a little, looked down into my eyes, and apparently liked what she saw there, because she smiled and said, "Well, even I didn't know I was going to do that— but I'm darned glad I did."

"So am I," I assured her, and smiled up at her. "Thanks— but there's still a battle going on. We can talk about this later. Hopefully at length."

"Okay," she said, and stood up nimbly, offered me a hand up. I managed to get vertical with her help, and saw her glance sideways before she said, "Ah, thanks… Rose, isn't it?"

"Yes, it is," Warden Killian said as she straightened up from binding and gagging Cowl— very effectively, too, he wouldn't be magicking his way out of anything anytime soon. "You're welcome, Buffy.

"And hey— I get the impression that was a first kiss. Good on you. For a guy, he's pretty okay."

"Thanks," Buffy said, chuckling as Killian stuck her tongue out at me in response to my glare. Buffy looked around for a moment, then added, "I lost my radio somewhere between where you attacked that asshole and up here, Harry— I'm gonna get close to one of the others, see if Dawn's got anything to say."

"Go on, I'll be fine here," I said. "Ask her about the other wizards— they're probably the biggest threat right now."

"Got it," she said, and trotted off.

I had to force myself not to admire that view, to turn and look around.

There were still about ten of the mantis men, gathered in a little group— and maybe another dozen of the über-ghouls had actually _joined them_. How that worked, I've no idea— the über-ghouls tended to try to kill and eat anything that got close, but the ones joining the mantis-men showed no signs of attacking the bigger monsters. (Or vice-versa, for that matter.)

The group of monsters started to pull themselves together for a charge, you could see it happening. Sanya, Steed and Molly started to move that way a little, Xander, Carlos and Murphy came down the hill with Buffy trotting next to Murphy and using her radio, and Killian, Marshall and Potter gathered around me.

I sighed, stood up straight— and saw all of the mantis men in the mob of monsters suddenly sort of… spasm in place, and Molly suddenly crowed, "Ah-HA! Gotcha!

"Everyone, hold your places for a minute or so, and maybe I can save us some work!"

Molly shifted position a little, like she was setting herself for a blow, and looked downslope at the mantis men and über-ghouls. Her mouth opened, one of the two wands she carried started to glow a pale blue color, her eyes closed— and my spine tried to crawl up into my skull and hide as she did something that I think was ultrasonic, above the frequency that humans can hear. I could sure as hell feel it, though, and I didn't like it one bit.

The mantis men, on the other hand, apparently found it _maddening_.

The nearest of the insect-like humanoids started sort of dancing in place, his pincer-stinger-things popping in and out of his mouth as he made a high-pitch keening sort of noise— then took his giant spear and rammed it through the nearest other monster, who also happened to be a mantis-man.

Others of the mantis-men, though, were attacking über-ghouls, who of course attacked back with their usual unbridled ferocity— and for almost a minute, as Molly maintained that ultrasonic note, the two kinds of monsters tore ferociously at each other, until all that was left standing was a single mantis-man. It looked around, saw us all stretched out across the slope uphill from it, and charged straight at Sanya.

Molly let go of her spell— and pretty much every wizard there but me (still drained) and Diamante (holding position at the base of the cliff and waiting for us calmly) opened up on that last of the monsters.

Killian hit it with a laser-like beam of fire that cut off the hand it held its spear in. Marshall waited until it stepped on a good sized rock, then flung rock, mantis-man and all some thirty feet in the air with a whispered word, a gesture with her whip— and a delighted cry of "Pull!"

In mid-air, Potter's mini-cyclone caught the thing, held it in one place for the others to attack, even as it spun it fast enough to prove that mantis-men vomit. Steed started pulling the water out of the thing— and Carlos administered the _coup de gras,_ hitting it with a hideously green bolt of pure entropy that pretty much cut it in half.

While the wizards in the group did that, Xander and Sanya ran down hill and administered permanent killing strokes to the ghouls there with _Amoracchius_ and _Fidelacchius_. That put an end to our problems— at least for the moment.

Dawn appeared beside Buffy a moment later, literally appeared out of nowhere as Janduski dropped the veil she'd had over the two of them.

"Nicely done, everyone," I called. "That was some inspired fighting.

"Now, if there's no reason to stay… let's get the hell out of here, catch up with Captain Luccio and the others.

"Dawn, what about the remaining five warlocks? They around here somewhere?"

"No, Harry, they opened gates to the Nevernever— at least I assume that's where the gates went— when you and Buffy took down that guy." She pointed at Cowl, slung over Potter's shoulder like a bag of feed. "I think you guys putting him down scared them.

"But you should like this— I got pictures of them. Through a night vision scope, sure, but pictures, and on film, not a disc or anything a wizard can mess up. And I turned the camera off completely, so it can't short out and fry the film or anything."

I stared for a moment, then shook my head and said, "Take the film out of the camera, just in case— then explain to me why you're working for the Field Museum instead of me."

Dawn grinned hugely, swung her backpack off of her shoulders and started rooting through it for the camera while she said, "You want me full time? You got me.

"Harry, this is what I really want to do. Be a Watcher, and it seems I can help a lot more than just Buffy with it.

"Also— you know that neat idea you had that Michael loved so much?"

I nodded, understanding that she didn't want to talk about me getting all the information ever written down about the Order of the Blackened Denarius put into a computer file. That way, the information could be disseminated so widely that they could never destroy all the copies of it, as their leader Nicodemus took pains to do with ordinary paper-storage information every chance he got.

Nicodemus… why did thinking about him feel important right then? Well, it'd have to wait, whatever it was. Dawn was waiting for an answer.

"Sure," I said, nodding. "What about it?"

"What if I were to do the same with all of your information, everything you've got on 'beasties and bogguns and thing that go bump in the night?' " Dawn asked. She tucked a roll of film in the pocket of her jeans and started putting the camera away as she continued. "Make a database out of it all, cross-referenced and organized right? Then your Paranet people could call in, and if you can't help them right away, I can maybe— probably, even— give them info that will let them help themselves, at least long enough for a Warden to get to them."

Good grief, why hadn't I thought of that? Well, never mind; she had, and she was not just willing to work on it, she was eager.

"You're hired. Put in your notice at the museum on Monday, work the two weeks out, then you're on my payroll. We'll figure out a decent salary later." I grinned and offered her my hand, and she hopped forward to shake, and grin back at me. "Welcome to the firm, Watcher Sinclair."

Dawn laughed and thanked me, and as we all started for Diamante and the earthworks stairway he was magically constructing against the cliff, Buffy came over and slung an arm around her sister's waist as they walked. I could hear her plainly as she said, "You know, for someone who used to be mostly a pest, you sure grew up right."

"Thanks," Dawn said. I could hear the smirk in her voice as she said, "I couldn't help but notice that you finally figured out you have strong feelings for the boss— which I think is pretty much perfect. You guys fit together, Buffy. Like you and Willow, you fit together."

For a moment, Buffy didn't answer, and when she answered, she sounded… melancholy, but not actually sad. "Thanks, Dawn. That's… the nicest thing you could say, I think."

"It's just the truth," Dawn said— then added, "And Xander thinks so, too."

"Well, then I guess I fell for the right guy," Buffy said, sounding pleased.

Me, I just grinned as I walked. Stiff muscles, sore joints— I didn't mind so much, not after hearing that bit of conversation.

Diamante's stairway was so solid that it never trembled at all as we all went up it, and we waited for him to undo it before we went on, with Steed walking point, looking for a sign of where the Captain and the others had moved into the Nevernever. He knew what to look for better than I did— there were standard signs, but they changed every month or so, and I hadn't known what they were since October of the year before.

We found the place, and Steed himself opened the gate, a neat rectangle six feet wide by ten high. We stepped through, walked a hundred yards in the direction indicated by some sign that Chandler read, and found all of the wardens and trainees in a clearing maybe half the size of a football field. Most were sitting around one of several large fires, though some were lying down while other wizards worked on treating their injuries.

Anastasia saw us coming, and she stood from where she'd been speaking to an injured young trainee, walked to me, and offered her hand. I took it, and she gave me a smile.

"I see you held them with no injuries to anyone but yourself," Ana said, shaking her head a little. "Well done, Harry."

"I'm not hurt," I said, even as I lowered myself carefully to the ground near the closest fire. Even as I reached the halfway point, Buffy slid under my right arm and helped me settle more slowly. "Just… banged up and tired."

I found myself sitting with my arm across Buffy's shoulders, her arm around my waist, her head leaning lightly against my chest, and I realized that I was smiling. That felt… right. Really, really right.

Ana noticed, and she smiled. "Well, you'll heal. I am impressed. And you took a prisoner— that's perhaps the best news I've heard in a very, very long time. Any idea who he is?"

"No, not exactly," I said, glancing over at the wizard-or-warlock Cowl, whom Potter had tossed unceremoniously on the ground a couple of feet from where he'd sat down. "I've faced him before, a couple of times. So have you, once. He's… he claimed not to be a Kemmlerite, but he's the one who tried the Darkhallow that Halloween when you drafted me."

Anastasia's eyes narrowed, and she looked at Cowl with an expression of distaste, then looked back at me and said, "That he survived that is… impressive and frightening.

"When did you face him the second time?"

"The night Ramirez and I challenged Vittorio Malvora and Madrigal Raith over the minor practitioners they killed," I said. "He's the one who gated in the über-ghouls and later… I _think_ he summoned the outsider that ramped up Vittorio's powers. And he tried to keep me from escaping before the bombs my… allies had put in place went off. Damn near pulled it off, too."

"Your reports on that incident, and the fact that he survived the failure of the Darkhallow indicate that he's ridiculously powerful," the Captain said, looking thoughtfully back and forth between him and me. "How did you manage to capture him?"

"I didn't, actually," I said, and squeezed Buffy's shoulders. "I just got him pissed at me, and while he was busy pretty much swatting me like a bug, Buffy pummeled him stupid— stupider? more stupid?— unconscious. She knocked his ass out and dragged him along with us."

"Well, I couldn't have, if you hadn't actually hurt him so bad that all he thought about was you," Buffy said, and turned her head up to kiss the line of my jaw, which made me shiver in a _really_ good way. "Poor guy looked like he'd been hit by the world's biggest shotgun after you hit him with all those rocks, Harry. Then the lightning thingie— I'm amazed he was still conscious."

"Rocks?" Captain Luccio said, raising an eyebrow at me (and tactfully ignoring the kiss thing). "I thought you weren't at all good with earth magic, Harry."

"Wasn't Earth magic," I said, and told her what I'd done.

For a long moment, she just stared at me, her eyes gleaming— then she threw her head back and laughed aloud. "Oh, Harry," she said, nodding at me in approval. "Now I understand where Warden Carpenter gets her creativity— that was _very_ well done, sir."

"Molly's more creative then I am," I said, remembering the things she'd done to start and end the fight, "but I do have my moments.

"Captain, if it's possible… I'd like some sort of commendation for every warden that stayed. And two for Marshall— she saved my life when Cowl retaliated after I smacked him around."

"It's very possible," Luccio said, her voice warm. "I'll see to it, thank you, Commander Dresden."

"Oh, please," I said, rolling my eyes. "No title, I get nervous when you use the title.

"Oh— and Captain, one of my people has an idea that… well, I think it could help all of us." I looked around, spotted Dawn sitting with Xander, Carlos and Molly, and called her over. When she arrived, I introduced her to the Captain by her new name and her original, then said, "Dawn wants to take an idea I had about fifty steps further."

"What idea is that?" Anastasia asked, looking intrigued.

"I had an idea about getting some info on a certain group of magical baddies put on computer, as opposed to just paper, since it'd be easier to spread it and harder to destroy it," I said, grinning a little at the very idea of how much that would piss off Nicodemus when he found out. "Dawn thought of taking it further— putting all the info I have on various and sundry magical beasties, good, bad, neutral or unclassified, and making a computerized database of it— and making it available to the people on the Paranet. I figure if we make sure the wardens and the rest of the White Council know about it, it might help them, too."

For a long moment, Ana just stared, her eyes faraway— then she smiled, revealing her dimples, and nodded. "I think it might irk some of the older wizards— like the Merlin— but if we don't mention it until it's _fait accompli,_ well… he can't say no."

"Good idea," I agreed, and matched her grin. "So, Dawn— run with that ball!"

"You got it, boss," Dawn said, and smiled contentedly as she got up and went back to sit with Xander, Carlos and Molly again.

I started to turn back to the conversation with Ana, and I heard a sudden sound, a series of grunts and what sounded like foiled shouts. I glanced around to see that Cowl was awake, and thrashing around. He'd rolled over and looked at me, and was apparently furious beyond belief, given how red his face was, and the glitter of pure hatred in his eyes. I started to turn away— and then I realized why he looked familiar.

I didn't say anything, just stood slowly, walked the ten or so paces that separated us, and knelt a couple of feet from him. (Buffy came with me, her arm still around my waist, half-supporting me as my aches and pains made themselves known rather loudly.)

I stared at him, and I saw his eyes grow suddenly cautious, saw him turn pale as he suddenly rolled to face away from me.

I didn't want to touch him, but I didn't have a lot of choice. I reached out and grabbed his shoulder, rolled him back to face me, then said, "Hold him, someone."

Potter, who'd apparently appointed himself as Cowl's guard, moved to hold the warlock steady, gripping one shoulder and, when the man started whipping his head around, a handful of hair.

I looked more closely— and I found myself suddenly feeling very cold. I recognized those features. Not like I knew him, but the way I would've known that Molly was Charity's daughter even if I hadn't met her before, the way I saw Susan and myself in Maggie's face….

"Search him," I said, my voice rough. Then I corrected myself. "No— strip him, carefully. Wear gloves."

Suddenly, Cowl went still. Then he managed to shake his head, slowly, just once, though it must have hurt to force himself against Potter's grip on his hair.

"Wait," I said, as Anastasia donned gloves. "Potter, un-gag him, but leave his hands bound.

"You know, Cowl, that if you try anything, you won't be killed— but you'll be so badly banged around by magic that you might _wish_ you were dead. Yes?"

Cowl nodded slowly, and Potter, after a nod from the Captain, un-gagged him.

"I am not what you think," Cowl said immediately, and I realized that the buzzing-screeching quality of his voice must have been some sort of magical effect, probably on his now-damaged-and-discarded mask. His voice… he even sounded like the man I was pretty sure was his father. "I would die before becoming one of them, Dresden! I hate them, hate them more than I hate you!"

"Okay," I said slowly. "So why are you after the White Council? Not like we're buddies with them."

"You are all signatories of the Unseelie accords!" Cowl snarled. "You would come to their defense if need be! Don't deny it!"

"_I_ sure as hell wouldn't!" I nearly snarled. Then I took a breath and said more calmly, "All right. What's your name? I'm not going to call you Cowl any more."

For a long moment, the man only stared at me, his eyes dark and full of anger and hate. Finally, he almost spat, "Matthias. My name is Matthias."

"Okay," I said, and looked at him. I looked back at Anastasia, then down at Buffy. "I'm going to have to look at this guy with my Sight for a second, just to be sure— be ready to catch me, in case he's lying, which I don't think he is."

"Harry, what—" Anastasia started.

"In a moment, Captain," I assured her. "Just a moment."

I steeled myself against a possible nightmare the likes of which I could barely make myself risk seeing deliberately, closed my eyes, and when I opened them, I opened my Sight.

Matthias was a dark, dark man. He'd done unspeakable things, things that had marked him, made him irredeemable, I think— though I'm sure Sanya and Xander might argue that— but he was human. Nothing lived inside him, or hung about him, and there was no sign of the thing I'd assumed automatically once I'd recognized him.

I banished my Sight, sighed in relief and said, "Okay, he's telling the truth. He's just a warlock, not… worse."

"What did you think he was, and why?" the Captain asked, and her tone said I should stop beating around the bush and give her a straight answer.

"I thought he was a member of the Order of the Blackened Denarius," I said, shaking my head a little. "As for why… look at him, Captain. No, wait— you never actually saw his father, I forget.

"This is Matthias Archleone. His father is Nicodemus Archleone— the leader of the Knights of the Blackened Denarius.

"So, kid— why aren't you a Nickelhead like the rest of your family?"

Nicodemus's son didn't answer me, just glared his hatred up at me and snarled wordlessly.


	24. Chapter 24

_Interlude:_

In the end, she decided to use one of Harry's friends to tell him what he needed to know, and she managed to do so without breaking any privacy taboos, simply through her knowledge of that friend.

She started in the same way Harry always had, because she knew that these particular friends of Harry's could always, always be found near certain places….

After obtaining the customary reward, she went to the alley behind the pizza restaurant, set the pizza down, opened the lid of the top box, and put her power into her voice. "I need to speak to Toot-Toot, the leader of the Za Lord's Guard. If someone could tell him that there is a message that needs to get to Harry as fast as possible, I will reward you all as is Harry's custom."

It took very little time at all for Toot-Toot, dressed in a pastiche of various Star Wars costumes, to show up. The faerie hovered some thirty paces from her on arrival, his box knife out and ready, and he looked at her for a long moment before saying in a suspicious tone, "I don't recognize you. You've never been around Harry when I've seen him, or when any of the Guard have seen him. Who are you, and why do you claim to be his friend when you've never been near him before?"

"I… cannot explain that, sir," she said, her voice carefully humble. "However, I believe that you can recognize a wizard when you see one, yes?"

"Of course," Toot-Toot answered, his tone almost scornful. "I see that you are a wizard, but that doesn't mean you're Harry's friend!"

"No, it does not," she agreed. "However, I will swear on my power that I am Harry's friend, and that I want only to help him— will that satisfy you enough to hear me out?"

Toot-Toot looked thoughtful, then nodded slowly, though he stayed where he was. "Include in your oath that you mean no harm to any friend of Harry's, and I will hear you out, but I promise no more than that."

"I swear to you, by my power, that I am a friend of Harry Dresden, that I mean no harm to him or any friend of his, or any member of the Za Lord's Guard, and that I intend only to help Harry Dresden and his friends, though I would stay hidden for now for personal reasons. In addition, I swear by my power that my reasons for staying anonymous are meant only to help Harry— and to allow me to give him a pleasant surprise when the time comes, hopefully soon."

"Hmm," Toot said reluctantly. "That _is_ a well-worded oath. You are a wizard… okay. Tell me what you want from the Guard and why."

"Harry is in the Nevernever, and he may be there for a while yet," she said, moving no closer and making no sudden moves, that she not startle the fairy and damage the limited trust she'd earned with her oath. "I need to get news to him that others he cares about are in danger— and my own presence might place him in more danger, right now. It isn't likely— but I won't take that chance."

"Who are these people he cares about that are in danger?" Toot-Toot asked.

"The remaining wardens of the White Council of Wizards, as well as many of the White Council themselves— including Harry's former mentor and dear friend, Wizard Ebenezar McCoy, and his and Harry's friend Wizard Joseph Listens-to-Wind." She sighed. "The enemies that Harry calls 'the Black Council' are making a push for power, and they have done… something horrible.

"They have summoned Outsiders to their battle with the Wardens and the Senior Council, and that battle goes very poorly. Harry and those with him could turn the tide— but only if they go there via Harry's special knowledge of the Ways will they arrive in time."

"Oh, boy," Toot-Toot said, flying closer. "Okay, that's stuff Harry should know, yes. Tell me anything else he needs to know, and I'll get it to him faster than even the Millennium Falcon could!"

She smiled just a little at the faerie's choice of expression, and gave him an address. "That will put Harry and his friends far enough behind the White Council wizards that they won't be seen arriving, but close enough to help."

"Harry's going to ask me who told me," Toot-Toot said. "What do I tell him to make him believe you?"

She smiled a little and said, "Well, you might have guessed this isn't my normal appearance, so a description wouldn't help." She thought about it, then said, "Tell him that I was a blind boy for a little while, that the slayer's sister just missed me the day of the funeral— and that I hope Michael liked the sketch."

"Oh, you were that boy?" Toot-Toot said, looking impressed. "Well you should have said so— we know you helped him, some of us were nearby at the ceremony of goodbye, because we were worried about Harry."

She smiled at that, somehow pleased. "I'm glad you were there, too. And thank you for helping, Toot-Toot."

"I am ever at the service of the Za Lord, even when he doesn't know it!" Toot said, drawing himself up. He spoke louder then, said, "She is to be trusted— the rations are safe. Go on, eat!"

"What about you?" she asked as dozens of balls of light streaked past her to get to the pizza.

"Harry is more important than pizza," Toot-Toot said, and there was nothing in his voice of false concern— only sincerity.

"Then you are truly a good friend to him," she said, and curtsied his way. "I will make sure that he knows of this, when I am ready to come forward to him, General Toot-Toot."

The faerie bowed to her in return, then turned, waved a hand negligently, and opened a gate into the Winter Ways of faerie that was exactly big enough to let him fly through it.

She turned and left the alley, smiling just a little. She had a journey of her own to make— because an ally in place behind the enemy, even if it was just one wizard, could perhaps make a difference, as well.

_Harry:_

For a moment, I just let the kid glare at me, and I looked him over. He didn't look a lot older than me, and when I had looked him over with my sight, he hadn't looked all that much more powerful, either. Which meant that he knew more about using minimal power for maximum effect than I did, which meant….

"Okay, so answer me one question, Matthias," I said, still hunkered down in front of him. "You answer me this one thing, and I'll see to it that you get tied up a little more comfortably. Still bound and gagged, but not so painfully."

He glared at me for a moment, then wiggled and made a sound of discomfort. (Killian knew how to tie someone up, yes— but her methods were a lot more uncomfortable than a couple that I knew of that were still pretty much impossible to escape.)

"Fine— so long as you don't ask me to betray my comrades," Nicodemus's kid said after a moment.

"How did you get so damned good with the magic?" I asked him.

Matthias hesitated, then sighed and said, "Thornéd Namshiel and Rosanna— she is my mother, not Tessa. Tessa… some from her, though she hated me. They taught me for years, and… and expected me to just follow their orders because they were my teachers. I… had my own ideas. I wanted— want— no part of ending the world, Dresden!"

"Okay," I said, nodding. I looked at Ana and said, "Can you tie him securely without hurting him, or should I do it?"

Ana blushed, and I fought a smile. She'd taught me the knots and rope-work I had in mind, and had implied… certain potentially embarrassing things about why she'd learned them. (This had been back when we'd been dating, of course.)

"I'll do it," she grumbled. "Dirty-minded male."

"Well, considering where I—"

"Enough, Commander," she said, moving forward. "Matthias, I do not intend to hurt you, but if you try to escape, every wizard here is going to come down on you at once— and gods help you if you hurt me or anyone else in the attempt. Understand?"

"I understand," he said, his voice more weary than hostile. "I will not attempt to escape, you have my word, sworn on my power— but I would like to feel my hands and feet again."

Ana busied herself with that, and I let Buffy help me get standing again. We went back to the fire, where I sat down with Buffy next to me and tried to figure out how to use this information.

Okay, for the moment, I had nothing. Matthias… he was as good as dead, but he wouldn't give up his comrades. Of course, I might— maybe— be able to use him to convince the Merlin and the other members of the Senior Council that the Black Council or the Circle or _whatever_ you called them, was real, and a real threat. That would be well worth the effort— I hoped.

"God, I'm tired," I said aloud, and I yawned hugely.

"Well, stretch out for a while, Harry," Buffy said. I looked down at her, and she smiled at me. "You were throwing magic around like it was popcorn, there for a while. I know that's tiring— and we're out of danger here. Lots of the other wardens and wizards are taking naps, so why shouldn't you?"

"You tempt me," I admitted, and gave her a wicked grin. "In more than one way, you tempt me, evil temptress-lady."

Buffy chuckled and said, "Nap, yes. Snuggling? Sure. 'Adult' snuggling? Not just yet, buster— and _not_ with an audience."

"Okay, in that case, I'll take options one and two, please," I said, and kissed her briefly. "Right here works for me— the fire's close, which is a good thing."

"I won't argue," Buffy said. She disentangled herself from me for a moment, said, "Be right back," and trotted over to where Dawn was sitting with Xander, Carlos, Sanya, Molly and Steed.

Buffy spoke to her sister for a moment, watched as Dawn rooted around in her pack for a moment, then accepted a bundle from her and came back to me. She grinned at me, shook out the bundle, showed me that it was a "space blanket," one of those thin silver blankets used by everyone from EMTs to the military to get maximum warm for minimum space requirement. Wrapped in the blanket was a rolled-up rain poncho.

Buffy shook the blanket out on the ground a little further from the fire than we'd been sitting, then motioned me to lay down. I started to comply, then grinned and took off my coat before stretching out on the blanket. Buffy looked at me oddly for a moment— then grinned as she got it. She stuffed the rolled up poncho under my head for a pillow, and I asked, "What will you do for a pillow?"

"Use your shoulder," Buffy said— and gave me a smile that told me that Xander was right. This wasn't infatuation on her part, any more than it was on mine.

"That," I said, trying my best to match that smile, "sounds like an excellent idea, Buffy."

Her smile widened, grew dazzling— and she stretched out beside me, nestled in as I put one arm around her, then helped me pull my climate-controlled duster over the two of us, to keep us warm.

"Mmm," she sighed, her breath warm against my chest. "Nice. Molly does good work— and you taught her well."

"Yeah, I did," I agreed. "Then she went and learned to use what I taught her in new and different ways. I'm damned proud of her."

"You should be," Buffy said. She lifted up, turned, and kissed me, a lingering, tingling thing. She spoke then, and sounded just a little nervous. "Harry…? I love you."

My cheeks hurt as I smiled at her as widely as I'd ever smiled in my life. "I love you, too, Buffy.

"Good night, lady."

"Good night, sir," Buffy said, and kissed me briefly before laying back down and worming closer. "Mmm. Warm."

I think I might have managed a murmur of agreement before I fell asleep, but I'm not really sure.

I woke up to Buffy sitting up and saying, "What the— oh, hi. What brings you here, General?"

"I have an urgent message for Harry," I heard Toot-Toot say. "I hate to ask you to wake him, but it's really important!"

"I'm awake," I said, and started to sit up. "Ow. Yep, awake."

"Harry, thank gosh!" Toot-Toot said, looking relieved. "Do you need that black drink before I give you your message, or—"

"Harry, who's your friend?" Anastasia Luccio asked from behind me.

"He's not just a friend, he's an ally," I said as Buffy helped me to sit up. "How long were we asleep?"

"About three hours," Ana said. Then she did something that, had Buffy not been there, I'd have offered to kiss her for, and handed me a nice, cold plastic bottle of Coke, even as she handed Buffy a Diet Coke. "This should help. May I have an introduction before you indulge, though?"

Ana sounded serious, only barely tinged with amusement, so I did it her way. "Captain Anastasia Luccio of the Wardens of the White Council of Wizards, allow me to introduce my ally, Major General Toot-Toot Minimus of the Za Lord's Guard.

"General, Captain Luccio is my immediate superior in the Wardens, a wizard of extreme power and knowledge, and as brave as you are. Treat her with the respect you do me, please."

"Of course, Harry," Toot said, and flew up to bow in front of Anastasia's face. "Captain, it is an honor. To have Harry's respect is to have mine, and that of all the Za Lord's Guard."

"The honor is shared, General," Ana replied gravely, though she was smiling. "I have heard the tale of how you saved Harry's life when he fought against the— against the thing he called 'Shagnasty.' I was very impressed, sir— attacking an enemy that much larger than you is an act of great courage, and that same creature did me an injury that put me out of the fight for the duration of the situation. You have my thanks for wounding him, since I could not."

I swear, Toot grew an inch at that praise.

I'd managed to get a swallow of Coke while that was going on, so had at least the beginning of a feeling that I might be human when I said, "All right— Toot, you said the message was urgent— did the Guard find that van?"

"No, Harry," Toot replied, turning back to me. "Harry, your old mentor and the rest of the wardens and the Senior Council are in trouble! Trouble so bad that they might all be killed if you and the rest of the wardens here, and the rest of your allies, don't get there soon? They might all be killed! The bad guys have called up _Outsiders!"_

"What?" I said, staring at him. "Toot-Toot, who told you that?"

"She was a wizard, Harry," Toot replied. "She knew a way to reach the guard, but didn't know my… you know, my _real_ name. Instead, she put out pizzas, put power in her voice, and said she needed to speak to my public name. There are always members of the Guard near a Pizza 'Spress, and that's where she did it. I went to see who she was, and she swore to me, by her power, that she meant you no harm, nor any harm to anyone you care about, then she told me about your other friends.

"Harry, she said that she was the blind boy, and that the Watcher Dawn just missed her the day of the Knight's wife's funeral."

"Crap!" I said, and managed to get completely vertical without having to lean on Buffy. "And she swore by her power that she meant no harm to me or those I care about… did she say where this was happening, Toot?"

"She gave me an address in a city called Kiev," Toot-Toot replied. He recited an address, then said, "She said if you go there, that will let you be close enough to help, but far enough away that you can all catch the bad guys by surprise.

"Can the Guard help, Harry?"

I thought about that for a moment, tried to find a way to say no without hurting the little guy's feelings, and found one. "Actually, yes. With all of us out of Chicago, I'm worried about my friends. The enemy has already proven that they can get around the protections Michael and his family has once, they might do so again.

"Toot, can you and the guard watch over the Carpenter household, and, while you're at it, Will and Georgia Borden and their friends Andi and Marci? I'll be a lot less worried about them with your people on watch. And if there are enough of you, keep up the search for Charity's killer, too. I need to stop him, Toot."

"As ordered, Lord of Za!" Toot-Toot said, and snapped to attention in mid air. "No harm shall come to the Knight or his children, or the werewolves, while your Guard is on duty, and we shall continue our search for the van of the villain who took away the Knight's lady!"

"Thanks, General," I said— and I meant it. The little folk may be little, but they can be fierce, and I worried a lot less with them on watch.

"I'll go now, Harry," Toot said, and looked at Buffy. "You'll keep him safe, Lady Slayer?"

"I will," she said solemnly.

"Then I won't worry," Toot-Toot said. He spun to Anastasia, bowed in the air and said, "It was an honor to meet you, Captain."

"The feeling is mutual, General," Ana said, smiling and giving him a regal nod of her head. "Thank you for the warning— Harry's friends are my friends, as well."

Toot grinned, saluted me again, and zoomed off to go back to Chicago.

"Okay, get together everyone who's capable of fighting, Ana, and I'll see about getting us to where we need to be," I said. "I think you should leave a few here to guard the injured— but that's your decision of course."

"Don't teach a gypsy to dance, Harry," Ana admonished. She turned and whistled, a younger wizard came up, and Ana started issuing orders in rapid-fire Italian.

I touched my mother's pendant and spoke briefly, describing where we were in the Nevernever as best I could, then giving the address where we needed to go. I got an answer I didn't care for much— forty minutes, three transitions— and decided to ask Ana where we'd come out if we went back to Earth from here. (She'd know— or she'd never have chosen this site.)

I got her attention, asked my question, and checked the possibilities from there.

"That's more like it," I said, nodding to myself. Buffy made an interrogative sound, and I looked at her and smiled. "If we go back to Earth from here, I can get us from where we'll come out in Sicily to Kiev in maybe ten minutes, maybe fifteen, depends. Either way, it beats forty minutes all hollow."

"Can't argue that," Buffy said, nodding. She stretched once— a delectable sight— and hefted the scythe, resting it on one shoulder. "So… Outsiders. Major-domo-holy-crap-run-away-really-fast nasty, right?"

"Pretty much, yeah," I said, frowning. "I… beat one once, back when I was sixteen, but I don't know how I beat it. I didn't even know it was an Outsider then, not a clue. Lash… right before she…. Before she left, Lash said that something about 'the circumstances of my birth' gave me the power to hurt them."

"Oh." Buffy looked thoughtful, even as she stepped closer and slipped an arm around my waist. "Well… Harry, if it comes to that— to facing an Outsider— I think I know what you should do."

"Okay, what should I do?"

She smiled up at me and said, "Do exactly what you'd do against a not-Outsider, Harry.

"If you didn't know it was an Outsider when you fought it back then, then you couldn't have done anything special, so... you don't _have_ to do anything special.

"Just kick it's ass however you would have if it were an ordinary demon."

I looked down at Buffy for a long moment before she reached up and gently pushed my mouth closed, a little smile playing about her lips as she did so.

"You," I said, once she'd done that, "are the most brilliant woman I've ever met, as well as being sexy, dangerous and beautiful, Buffy Sinclair!"

"Aw, it wasn't that big a deal," Buffy said, but she smiled— and she blushed, just a little. "I mean come on, Harry— I was just barely fifteen when I got the slayer gig, and I'm thirty, now. After fifteen years, I'd _better_ be able to see something like that."

"I've been at this almost that long," I said, shaking my head in admiration, "and I didn't see it. So… brilliant. You. Deal with it."

She popped up on her toes and kissed me briefly in reply, which _seriously_ beat a merely vocal thank you.

"Ahem," Anastasia said mildly from behind us.

I turned to see the Captain and some seventy uninjured and relatively fresh looking wardens standing ready to go, with Team Dresden— Molly, Carlos, Sanya, Xander, Dawn, and the ever-reliable Murphy— standing slightly in front of them and to Ana's right.

"Harry," Ana said, her eyes dark and serious, "I know more than you about this sort of battle, but at the same time, you know your friends and their capabilities better than I. I propose that you take your friends, and any additional forces from my group that you want, and you… do what you do. But this time, we can coordinate our efforts beforehand I think…."

"Excellent idea, Captain— and thank you for trusting me and the rest of my fr—"

"Team Dresden!" my friends shouted, in perfect unison— even Buffy.

I grinned hugely, and corrected myself. "Thank you for trusting me and the rest of Team Dresden, Captain."

"You've all earned it," Ana said, loudly enough to be heard by everyone there— and with a chuckle in her voice. "Now… do you know a quick way to Kiev?"

I snickered and said, "I don't know, would you call fifteen minutes quick?"

Ana's eyes widened, and she looked at the ruby at the center of my pentacle necklace, the only part of my gear that was really new. "So… your mother found a way to pass on her knowledge of the Ways, did she?"

"She did," I confirmed.

Ana shook her head, grinned ruefully, and said, "Well… Maggie, if you can hear me— thank you.

"But Harry, if you go rogue on me, know this; I won't try to chase you, I'll just buy up the world's supply of Coca-Cola and use it as bait to lure you in!"

"Now that's just evil," I sighed. I looked over Anastasia's shoulder, saw some familiar faces, and said, "Hey, can I borrow Marshall and Killian again? Their style fits Team Dresden really well.

"In fact, any of the Wardens you loaned me last time who aren't staying here would be welcome."

"Marshall, Killian, you're with Dresden," Ana said, and smiled as she shook her head. "Potter's staying to guard the warlocks we captured, I need Diamante… Janduski, go with Dresden and his people."

Marshall and Killian trotted over to Team Dresden, and Janduski followed them, a positively wicked grin on her face.

"This time, I want in the thick of the fight, Dresden," Janduski said. "I didn't get to beat any of the warlocks down, last time."

"Fair enough, even if it does mark you as insane," I said, and shook my head mock-mournfully. "Of course, in this group? No one will notice your insanity.

"Okay, I want to save my energy, and I'm not all that good with portals anyway— Ana, if you take us back to Earth, that will put us a few blocks from the departure point."

The Captain took a few steps forward, whispered a word and drew a big rectangle in the air, taking several steps sideways to do so, and making it as high as she could reach. The rainbow energy of the spell faded quickly, and we looked into a nice, clean alley somewhere in Palermo, Sicily. I stepped through (Ana glared at me when I had to duck to do so), the others followed, and I found myself surprised that it was daylight— shouldn't have been, but international travel via the ways was still sort of new to me.

I told Luccio where we needed to go, and she nodded once, then struck off to the south, moving quickly and with purpose. The rest of us followed, and boy, did we collect some stares as we went to an old church some five blocks away. No one tried to stop us, or interfere in any way— but they stared a lot.

Around at the back of the church, I went to the one trellis on the back of the building, which was covered with some gold-centered white flowers I didn't recognize, and I stopped and touched Mom's gem again, listened to her voice in my head. (She even told me what the flowers were, something called clematis montana.)

"Okay," I said as I turned to face the crowd of wardens behind me, "this trip involves two transitions, and the first one is… a little dangerous. The place we're passing through first is a swamp of some sort, though the path is solid. However, under no circumstances do you want to use fire magic there, or create an electrical spark of any size. Magical light that produces no heat or electricity only— and it will be dark there. Let's get organized now, so that we've got light all along the column…." That took less than a minute, mostly because Anastasia Luccio takes her job very seriously, and has an encyclopedic knowledge of her people's magical strengths and weaknesses. "The second transition is harmless, but drab— gray skies at all times, brown grass, no threats ever encountered— then we enter Kiev about four blocks from the fight, and things get… interesting.

"I don't know much about what's happening there, save that someone is making a concerted effort to take out the White Council— and that there are Outsiders involved."

That got a rumble of mixed anger and trepidation, and I didn't blame anybody for either one.

"Yeah, it's going to be ugly," I agreed. I took a deep breath, then said, "But we've got to go in there, or people we all care about and respect— there has to be someone in there who qualifies for each of us— are going to be hurt or killed.

"We've got some things on our side; surprise, and, for those of you who know what it means, two Knights of the Cross. Then… well, I've seen a lot of you staring at the lady, and some of you aren't even drooling, so I'm guessing that you recognize the woman beside me.

"Yes. She really is who those of you who think you recognize her think she is; she's Buffy— she's _the slayer_. She's already proved that she can handle herself against Black Court vampires, warlocks, demons, über-ghouls and some deeply nasty mantis-giant-demon things. I'm sure she'll make a difference in Kiev, too.

"So— lets go kick some bad guy ass, what do you say?"

I got a growling sort of cheer, and I turned and opened a way against that trellis of white-and-gold clematis flowers, stepped through, and waited for the others to come through, then led the way through the swamp— which I think I would have been bright enough to not light a fire in even without Mom's warning; the place stank in a very chemical way.

The journey to Kiev went without a hitch, and soon enough, we were all gathered in a sort of courtyard behind a massive building whose function I couldn't even guess. I looked around, listened— and heard the unmistakable sounds of wizards in combat coming from somewhere to the east of us.

"Okay, then," I said, looking at Anastasia and nodding. We'd worked out a plan on the way here, as she'd suggested, and it was a good one, with a real chance to work. "Just like we planned it— until that old adage you love to quote comes up, anyway."

"You mean 'no plan survives contact with the enemy,' Harry?" Ana asked, and I nodded. "Well, it's mostly true, but we'll do the best we can."

"Good enough for me," I said, and offered her my hand. The Captain shook with me solemnly, then turned to her group and said, "All right, all of you, listen up— here's what we're going to do…."

While she spoke, I motioned to "Team Dresden" (I have the coolest friends in the world, I swear) to follow me, and I started off to the north, Buffy beside me on one side, Carlos on the other as I gave them the immediate scoop. Once they'd heard the plan, they dropped back and sent up Dawn and Molly. I told them their parts, they switched with Marshall and Killian, who swapped with Janduski and Murphy, and finally Xander and Sanya.

No one argued about details. No one complained about their role in the plan. No one told me I was crazy. All that saved me from abandoning the plan completely was that most everyone at least _looked_ at me like I was insane. That boosted my confidence. (Hey, crazy is _what I do_. If no one thought my plan was crazy, well, I would have known it was a bad plan.)

We went around the battle we could hear, moving quickly, staying at least two blocks off, watching as normal people, terrified beyond belief, streamed away from the area of the actual battle, which was a big open public park, about four city blocks square, situated in a very nice section of "Old Kiev." The architecture and the buildings were mostly from the sixteen hundreds and seventeen hundreds, all big, solid buildings with ornate decorations, columned fronts, wrought-iron balconies and fences… gorgeous, kind of like Belgrade had been, but different in a way I couldn't quite put my finger on.

We reached our destination, a very old house that had a sort of a tower on one side, and that, according to Captain Luccio, would be unoccupied at this time of year. (She had a house in the neighborhood, it turned out, her and a couple of members of the Senior Council, near a safe house that had been what the wardens and the council had probably tried to retreat to— obviously without success.) We knew that nothing so complicated as a security system would survive this close to a battle where major magics were being tossed around, so Buffy simply forced the doorknob until the lock broke, and Dawn went in to go up to the tower and play observer again. Since we couldn't count on her electronic gear surviving if turned on, she had a pair of binoculars Anastasia had gotten from another warden, and she and Buffy each had one of a pair of "rough and ready" speaking stones hanging around their necks. These were something like the stones used by the Grey Council to communicate, but without all the extra caution and security against detection, so they'd require no deep concentration to use.

("Magitech," Xander had said when he heard the description of the stones. "Cool!")

We waited until Dawn had reached her perch, listened to her description of the battle, modified our plans slightly, left Molly outside the house to hide or defend Dawn, should need arise (she protested, but she was low on magic, and, as a Sensitive, would very likely go _insane_ if she got near a battle that had Outsiders fighting in it), and where she could do a couple of things that… might be minor, might not be. They'd help my morale (and my sense of the dramatic), so I called them more than minor.

"Okay, people," I said, taking a deep breath and letting it out slowly. "This is it. Everyone ready?"

My friends all said they were ready, paired up as we'd planned— and we all headed off towards the park and the battle, walking quickly and keeping buildings between us and the park.

We got within a row of houses from the park, waited at the junction of two alleys (this part of the city was so old that each block was quartered by a pair of alleys that had, according to Anastasia, once been streets), just out of sight of the battle.

We waited, we listened for the sounds of battle to change— and then we heard it; a roar from some seventy throats, a bellow of a battle-cry borrowed from my Grandfather, who had lost friends at a battle with the Red Court that had almost surely been started under the egging-on of the Black Council.

"_**REMEMBER ARCHANGEL!"**_ roared some seventy Wardens of the White Council of Wizards as they came around the existing force of White Council wizards in two groups, setting up a neat pincer movement on the enemy force.

And still, we waited, waited on the signal that Anastasia and I had agreed on, and listened to Buffy echo Dawn's report of what she was seeing from her perch.

"The enemy is definitely surprised, but they aren't breaking ranks," Buffy said, her eyes out of focus as she simply parroted everything her sister said to her. "There are some five or six hundred people, all apparently non-magical types, surrounding the bad guys, all of them… apparently, something has driven them crazy, most of them are howling and screaming, some are even foaming at the mouth. There are… at least forty wizards at the center of the group, probably more like fifty, difficult to get a good count, they're moving around too much. Also at least that many… uh, really pretty people, all of them really pale, mostly blonds with a few redheads mixed in. Some of them are moving around in the crowd of normals, some are in a ring around the inside of the ring of normals, and those… about twenty-five of them all seem to be almost _glowing,_ they're so pale. All of the pale-and-pretty crew are… moving oddly, way too gracefully to be human."

"White Court vampires," I said with a growl. "From the House Méreg, which, according to the Captain, feeds-on-slash-incites anger. Their demons are out to play, and probably to feast."

"Luccio's wardens… they're at the same disadvantage as the rest of the Council," Buffy went on. "But… yes, there it goes. They're starting to throw arcing spells, aiming to come down in the middle. The enemy's tossing up shields, angled to deflect the spells out at the normals, just like she thought… the White Council group is freaking out, thinking that the wardens are about to kill people, accidentally, but kill them…. Harry, your old mentor is trying to get out front, out to where they can hear him, but— there they go! The Black Council's confused as hell, Harry— Luccio's people's spells are harmless, light and sound, not much else, and— there! They've already done it, sent the normals forward, we have a gap!"

"Signal Molly," I said, and Buffy repeated it to her sister, on the other end of the speaking stones. A second later, we heard a single muffled gunshot— and Molly did what she does, this time a mild version, not meant to blind or deafen, just to confuse the enemy further, keep them from pulling in the normals as a protective wall again.

I'm a geek, in case you haven't figured that out already. I love science fiction, I love fantasy, and I love me some super heroes. Now, Spider-man's my favorite hero, but I did see the Superman movies— and I still get the urge to stand up and fight some bad guys when I hear the theme that John Williams composed for the movie, that sweeping, heroic march that can _still_ make me square my shoulders, straighten my spine and lift my chin— some thirty years after the first time I ever heard it.

Molly had heard it, knew it as well as I did; I'd gone with her and the Jawas to see Superman Returns (big disappointment, but they were smart enough to keep the original theme, at least) back when it came out. Molly had managed to get a vinyl copy of the original Superman: The Movie soundtrack, and she'd brought over an old record player of her mom's, put it in my living room, and for days that soundtrack had played while I taught her magic, and we worked on potions— we just kept playing it, over and over.

Now, Molly's memory for music, aided by her magic and my insanity, sent that huge, powerful theme out over the center of the battlefield, loud enough to drown out most other noise, but not loud enough to hurt the ears.

Xander laughed in sheer delight, raised _Amoracchius_ to me in salute— and the nine members of Team Dresden (I included Janduski, Killian and Marshall, they were fighting with us, they were on the team) went around the corner of the alley and charged straight for the knot of bad guys at the middle of the park, howling like a bunch of madmen as we went.


	25. Chapter 25

_Interlude:_

When she reached Kiev, she realized that she was feeling something she had not felt in a very long time; she was afraid. Afraid for Harry and his friends, afraid for herself, but most of all (and most surprisingly) she was afraid for the Wizards of the White Council that she had never known, had sworn never to join.

No, that wasn't quite right. Most of all, she was afraid for those who would get caught in the crossfire, injured in a battle they didn't understand or even, before they were thrust into it, imagine could ever happen.

_I am… afraid for those I never met, never will meet… oh, Lord, this is— I remember this, this caring and—_

—_and __**I will not permit this!**__ Innocents will not be harmed if I can stop it!_

_I may be mortal, but I will act on behalf of the Hosts of Heaven, as once I did before! Before I listened to the wrong brother, let him use my pride against me, against all I had once believed and stood for._

_I remember— and I know that I have a great deal to do before I am truly worthy of those memories again._

_I will do it— and if I fall, I will fall as Harry would; snarling my death curse at those who would harm those I care for, spitting my last breath in defiance._

_I have hidden long enough. Today, the hiding ends— and, God willing, I will greet my friend and tell him of how his courage showed me the way to life and this miracle of caring!_

She found herself smiling, though it was a hard smile, as she moved through the city towards the place where the White Council was under assault. It wasn't hard to locate the battle; people were moving away from it, most not knowing why, or caring, only moving away from a danger that they sensed in ways they could not name. Some moved under the effects of a gentle, subtle magic, something crafted with great care to avoid hurting those it affected, a magic that simply urged people to stay away from a certain part of town.

That magic would have been that of the Senior Council member Rashid, called 'the Gatekeeper,' she thought, though it might have been any of them. But when it came to mind magics this carefully designed, so meticulously constructed to avoid any damage to the minds of those affected, the Gatekeeper was the most likely candidate, with Joseph Listens-to-Wind a close second.

She smiled, moved against the spell. It required no defense past knowledge that it was a spell, which was in itself a masterful piece of spell-craft.

She got closer, and could hear the sounds of the battle. Closer still, and she heard a roared battlecry, a great many throats shouting "REMEMBER ARCHANGEL!"

Closer still, and she saw a group of eight people at the crossing of the alleys that quartered the block she had just entered, recognized Harry, even from the back, and Murphy, even Sanya. The others… the little blond must be the slayer— yes, there, she hefted the Scythe, shifted her grip on it, preparing for battle. The black-haired Caucasian with a sword— no, not with just "a sword," he carried _Amoracchius!_ She smiled, thought about the Xander Harris she knew from Harry's memories of one of his favorite shows, and found herself thinking it appropriate that he carried the Sword of Love.

She didn't know the others with Harry and his friends, but that didn't matter, if they trusted these others, she could. She started to step that way, heard a distant gunshot—

—and suddenly, music filled the air, music that she knew, because Harry had known it and loved it.

As the theme from "Superman" blasted across the battlefield, Harry and his friends charged out onto the battlefield, shouting and yelling as they went.

For a moment, despite the danger in front of her, despite her determination to help, her worry for the man who had shown her how to be free, despite all of those things and many more that worried, upset or angered her—

—for a moment, all she could do was lean against the wall that formed this alley… and _laugh_ at Harry's insane little touch to the battle.

After a moment, she forced herself to straighten up— and charge after Harry and his friends.

_Harry:_

I led the charge into the thick of the battle, looking for a sign of who to target first, trying to determine, without resorting to my wizard's Sight, which of the White Court vampires ahead of us had been possessed by an Outsider— and hoping like hell that it wasn't more than one of them.

That worried me. Toot-Toot had said "Outsiders," plural, which probably meant that my mysterious benefactor (benefactrix?), whoever she was, had probably used the plural, too. I had some magic back after my nap, but I was a long way from full strength. More than one Outsider… I didn't think I'd have the juice for that.

Unless, of course, I caught one by surprise….

Maybe the music was a bad idea. I didn't think so. Anything unusual in a battle has to be noticed, thought on, worried about— so having Molly give us a soundtrack, that would put the enemy off of their guard for a few moments, long enough, I hoped, for Team Dresden to get in there and start making mayhem before they realized what was happening.

(Besides, the Superman theme made me feel like a superhero.)

So in we went, passing through the outer ranks of innocent people who'd been jerked into this by having their emotions manipulated virtually unnoticed, making it to the second group— the White Court vampires of House Méreg, monsters who fed on the life force of ordinary people, and preferred that energy flavored with anger, unlike my brother's former house, House Raith, which fed on lust.

The strange thing (at least I'd always found it strange) was that White Court vampires could incite the emotion in people that they fed on. That seemed to me too much like picking yourself up by your own belt, but Bob always said it was more like making your own barbecue sauce to put on ribs.

Either way, they were monsters, they were killers— and there was no law that said I couldn't kill _them_ with magic.

But since I was trying to save my magic, when the first of them saw me— saw _us_ and leapt at me since I was leading— so pale he was practically glowing, his eyes a deadly shade of silver, a leap that no human could have made—

—I drew my Beretta from my duster pocket and shot him three times in the chest and stomach as he fell towards me. That slowed him, even tossed him back a little, and Buffy, taking her cue from me, lopped off his head with a casual swipe of the Scythe as we passed him.

He hadn't been Outsider possessed. Don't ask me how I knew that, but I did, and from more than just the ease of killing him.

Others in the inner circle of mages and monsters were starting to turn towards us, now, and I spotted a wizard— no, he was preparing to attack a group of people, not monsters, he was a warlock— raising his staff to toss a spell of some sort our way. I shot him, too, and he screamed a mixture of pain and rage as my shot punched through the shoulder of his staff arm, dropped his staff and started screaming for help.

Which is when it got crazy, as Luccio and the wardens, much more used to this sort of confrontation than the average wizard, and fresher by far than those who'd been fighting this running battle for who knew how long, hit the ring of normals, and started taking them down as gently as they could with fists, feet, and the occasional smack with a blunt instrument. (Wizard's staff? Great for that sort of thing!)

Oh, sure, the wardens were outnumbered by better than seven-to-one— there were about five hundred rage-crazed people in the crowd around the bad guys, and maybe seventy wardens— but the mob wasn't thinking, they were tearing into any targets in front of them like rabid dogs, attacking without thought or plan.

The wardens, on the other hand, were trained in hand-to-hand, not just combat magic, and they were organized, thinking, and fighting smart. In the couple of seconds I watched, maybe forty magically-enraged people went unconscious from carefully controlled blows from the wardens.

Then another House Méreg vampire was in my face, snarling something at me in a language I didn't know, and punching me in the ribs, this one a woman who was really pretty— or would have been if not for the snarling thing.

Nice thing about my duster? It works pretty well against any physical force. I felt her blows, they hurt, but they didn't, you know, _cave in my ribs and destroy my lungs_, like they would have without the enchantments on my coat.

Buffy reached over and hauled the woman off of me with one hand, and immediately the vampire shifted its focus to attacking Buffy. I knew she could handle it, so I looked around for some clue as to which of the House Méreg vamps were being possessed by Outsiders.

One of them caught my eye immediately; another female vampire, this one small and delicate, with long red hair swirling around her as she stood near the front of the group facing the incoming wardens… and danced, danced in place and laughed as she called instructions (or, more likely, encouragement, since the people she was talking to weren't exactly in a frame of mind for taking instructions) at the crowd in front of her. Something about her was… wrong. Off. She didn't feel… I don't know, like an "ordinary" White Court vampire. I started her way, stumbled over the corpse of the vampire that had been attacking me (Buffy works _fast_— it's amazing), caught myself, looked around, saw my friends involved in thoroughly screwing up the bad guys' plans, saw Buffy stepping up beside me, and grinned.

"That one," I said, nodding at little miss dancer and dropping my gun back into my duster pocket. "She's possessed, I'm sure."

"Let's go then," Buffy said, and caught my hand just long enough to squeeze it. "Remember— just do what you do. Nothing special, no extra jazz— just take it down like any old demon, Harry."

"Yes ma'am," I said— and she rolled her eyes at me before she started clearing a path in that direction.

Watching Buffy work was a treat— had been a treat back when I was watching her on a TV screen, was so much cooler live, up-close-and-personal. I felt almost guilty for not doing more than smacking the occasional combatant that tried to flank her with my staff, or shooting them, if they were plainly not human. She just moved along, smacking the people with fists and feet, occasionally with the mace-end of the Scythe, taking the blade of the weapon to those monsters who got too close for their own good.

Then we were close enough that the possessed House Méreg vamp saw us during one of her pirouettes, and stopped dancing, stood facing us— and spoke.

"You!" she snarled, her voice ordinary enough. "You! I know you! You have spoiled our fun before, mortal!

"This time, I will spoil YOU!"

Buffy started to step in front of me, but I stopped her with a shake of my head, said, "No, this is why I'm here, Buffy. She's mine."

The woman looked at Buffy, pointed a finger at her, and said something in another language— then looked hugely puzzled, and repeated herself, shouted it, the second time.

"No idea what it is you're wanting, sweetie, but you aren't gonna get it," Buffy said, sounding almost bored. She stepped sideways to intercept some incoming normals and added, "All yours, big guy. Do what you do!"

The White Court vampire snarled wordlessly— and raised both hands to point at me, palms out.

I didn't know what to expect, so I shook out my shield bracelet and brought up my shield on all three available defenses, electrical, fire and kinetic. An instant after I did so, brilliant red lightning leapt off of the woman's hands and hit my shield. When the spell failed to hurt me, she dropped her hands to her sides and started walking towards me, slowly, menacingly, and as though there was no one around but us.

Okay. I dropped the electrical and fire portions of my defense, kept the kinetic shield between me and her, and gave Buffy's suggestion a try. I did nothing special, I just leveled my staff at the woman, and, in order to save energy, hit her with my most familiar spell.

"_Fuego!"_ I cried, and a jet of orange-yellow fire as thick as my staff jetted at the woman, hit her in the chest— and punched right on through, set her clothes on fire as it went, then seemed to start on her flesh.

She staggered, looked up at me (she was short, maybe five feet tall) and started trying to walk on towards me, trying to cover the thirty feet or so between us before she… I don't know, burned too much to move?

She didn't make it. She got three steps, then fell to the ground, burning all over now (which really shouldn't have happened, the flames shouldn't have spread like that). Her head came up and I heard a cracked voice, nothing like the woman's, say, "Not… possible. You are… insig—insi…."

"Not today, I'm not," I said, staring at the corpse in disbelief. Buffy had been right, I'd been able to just… just _kill it,_ like it was the White Court vampire it had been inhabiting.

I heard something, then, a welcome sort of sound; I heard a whole lot of people, all around me, start making noises of confusion. I looked around, saw the raging crowd no longer raging, saw the innocent people in the park looking around, dumbfounded, as the vampires of House Méreg— or at least the Outsider-controlled ones who had the power for inciting rage in that many people— stopped trying to make the crowd crazy-angry. Cool!

Oh. Wait, that might mean—

"KILL HIM!" shrieked a man's voice, impossibly loud and not really all that human. "KILL DRESDEN! KILL HIM NOW!"

Uh-oh….

Then I saw what had shrieked, and I upgraded that "uh-oh" to a hearty "oh, shit!"

Something was growing inside one of the vampires from House Méreg, and as it grew, it tore its way out of the body of the White Court monster.

It was hideous. It shouldn't have existed, not ever, not anywhere. It stood ten feet tall on legs that bent the wrong way at the knee, and its arms hung low, its claw-tipped hands almost touching the ground. It was thin, painfully thin, and shaped like… I don't know what. From the waist to shoulders, it looked like a starving bear, only its fur was a shade of yellow that doesn't exist in nature, shouldn't exist at all. Its arms were humanlike except for the fur— and an extra set of joints between shoulder and elbow, and those extra joints bent both ways. The hands were big, too big, and had six fingers and two opposable thumbs, all capable of bending either way, towards the palm or the back of the hand. The legs looked like a big cat's, though they ended in talons that would have been at home on a velociraptor. It was horribly, hideously obvious that the thing was male, too. But the head… it was the worst.

Take the head of a king cobra, then blow it up to maybe twice the size of the average human head. Cover it in that painful-neon-vomit-pus yellow fur, then make the mouth… wider. Fill that mouth with not just one pair of fangs, but two, top and bottom, then crowd the rest of the mouth with teeth that looked like broken glass mixed with razor blades, all stuck at random into the gums between and around the fangs. Then make the eyes glow a shade of green that exactly, _perfectly_ clashes with that horrible yellow fur.

I came pretty close to vomiting, and it's not like I'm new to the seriously gross stuff.

"DRESDEN!" it shrieked in a voice that could've shattered glass. "YOU HAVE INTERFERED FOR THE LAST TIME, YOU PATHETIC CREATURE! NOW YOU FACE—"

Maybe I should've waited, let it tell me who I was facing, but really? I was too close to panic for that. Instead, I cut loose with a bolt of force from my staff, let it go with a near-scream of _"FORZARÉ!"_ and a convulsive expulsion of will through my arm and my staff.

The Outsider took the blast of raw force on the chin— and staggered back a single step before shaking its head and starting to stalk towards me.

What the hell? As panicked as I was, as terrified as I felt, that shot should've sent the damned thing flying most of the way out of the damned park at the minimum. Yet here it came, stalking towards me as though it hadn't felt the hit at all. What the hell?

"Shit!" I snarled, then I flipped my staff to my left hand and drew my blasting rod. Yes, the staff could project fire, but the blasting rod was made solely for that purpose— and it took less energy to get the same amount of flame with the blasting rod.

I got the rod out, aimed it at the Outsider's center mass, and cried, _"Fuego!"_

I was still scared, and that drove the magic out very powerfully, added strength to the spell— so I grinned when the fire punched through the Outsider's gut and lit it up from within.

At least, I grinned until it howled a word— and the fire went out. Apparently, Outsiders are tougher when they aren't possessing someone, when they're in their own forms.

Crap.

It leaped the last of the distance between us, snatched at my head, and I ducked even as I raised my shield, put up my defense against kinetic energy and tried to stand my ground as the thing started pounding on my shield with powerful, rhythmic blows. I tried, but it drove me back a little with each blow, and I felt my bracelet starting to get warm, meaning that I was overworking the focus. I had to come up with something, soon, or it would be a case of the damned thing would melt and burn me— and I'm still kind of twitchy about being burned. Okay, really twitchy. My left hand was mostly scar-free now, only the outer half of my left pinky and a narrow ring of scar tissue encircling my wrist remaining as evidence that my left hand had been burned most of the way off of my body several years before. The doctors I'd seen had all suggested amputation, but I'd refused, hoping that my wizard's metabolism would allow me to heal it. That hope had paid off— but it hadn't erased my fear of being burned again.

I figure it was that pure, blind, unreasoning fear that led me to the answer.

I didn't really remember the fight against He Who Walks Behind, the Outsider I'd defeated at age sixteen when my former mentor sent it out to kill me, not knowing then that it _was_ an Outsider. I pretty much remembered a lot of fire, an explosion— and the first in a too-long series of burning buildings.

Wait— a lot of fire…. I'd thrown fire at it again and again and then again, because I was terrified, and fire magic was my default attack. Over and over, fire and heat, time after time….

I didn't have the energy for that sort of repeat spell, not right now— but I had something just as good, maybe better.

Buffy chose that moment to attack the Outsider before me, bless her, or at least sort of attack it. She'd been fighting a non-Outsider White Court vampire pretty close by, and seeing me being driven back, Buffy opted to kick said vampire as hard as she could— directly into King Yellow the Grotesque.

King Yellow staggered sideways under the unexpected hit from the vampire, and I had my moment. I called up all of the magic I could find in me at that moment, then reached into that well of power that I rarely tapped— and pushed all the Soulfire that the spell would hold into it as well.

I leveled my blasting rod at King Yellow's chest as he turned his head to snarl a wordless threat at Buffy, and I roared, _"PYROFUEGO!"_ at the top of my lungs.

White hot fire, flickering with silver all through the beam, jetted out of my blasting rod's tip in a beam no thicker than a pencil, far more concentrated than I could usually manage, and it hit King Yellow squarely in the notch at the bottom of the sternum.

King Yellow suddenly lit up from the inside, white and silver light glowing from inside him for just a moment—

—then the hideous thing pretty much blew up, though (thankfully!) the pieces all either burned up or evaporated into ectoplasm before they got on anyone.

(I was relieved. The only thing I could think of that might be more gross than King Yellow's outside was his insides. Yuck!)

"NICE ONE, DRESDEN!" Murphy yelled from somewhere nearby, and I glanced around to see her moving along with Sanya, shooting anything that tried to attack the big Russian from the side or behind.

Nearby, I saw Janduski moving along beside Xander as he cut his way determinedly through the ranks of White Court vamps that were massing between him and the warlocks at the center of the crowd. She was on his blind side, tossing little bolts of lightning around at the enemy, not always killing the vamps— but always leaving them stunned and jittering at least.

Killian and Marshall were standing back to back between a bunch of House Méreg vamps and a group of normals as the pale and pretty monsters tried to get close enough to the confused and frightened people surrounding the fight to take hostages. Killian's sword was out and flashing around her body in tight, deadly arcs that chopped off vampire hands and feet so easily that I was put in mind of those old Ginsu knife commercials where they'd cut through a tin can, then, immediately after, slice a tomato with the same knife. Scary. Of course, there was plainly something very magical about Marshall's whip, as she was amputating vampire parts at damned near the same rate as Killian and her sword.

Carlos was moving along a little ways behind Buffy and I, picking off House Méreg stragglers that got too close to the normals even as he yelled at the normals to get out of the area. I don't know how many of them spoke English, but most of them seemed to get the message, maybe from his tone of voice. Or maybe they were fleeing the weird shit going on all around them. I could make a case.

I was tucking my blasting rod back into my duster and looking towards Carlos when a House Méreg vampire leaped over the crowd with a big damned sledge hammer— probably a twenty-pounder— back over his head, headed right for Carlos.

I didn't have time for a spell, and frankly, I didn't have the energy, so I yelled, "Carlos, LOOK OUT!"

He turned, but too slowly, and I was afraid that I was about to see my friend die—

—and a beam of white-gold energy, shaped vaguely like a bull's head came from somewhere behind Carlos, slammed into the vampire horns-first, punched into its left side and the left side of its throat, and sent it back towards the crowd of warlocks, trailing too-pale blood in two streams as it fell.

Carlos didn't look back that way, he had more vamps coming his way, but he yelled, "Whoever you are, thank you!"

"You're welcome!" called a pleasant, almost musical, female voice.

I looked towards where the voice and the magical construct had come from, and saw the woman— girl, maybe?— who'd just saved my friend's life.

She was little, almost tiny— smaller, overall, than Murphy, and that takes some doing. She might have stood five feet, but I'd have bet on four-ten or -eleven, and if she weighed more than ninety-five pounds, then it was because she had adamantium laced bones, or something. Her hair was almost-black, a rich, darker-than-dark brown, and long— I could see the end of a cloth-wrapped ponytail swinging out from behind her, and it hung below the middle of her back. She had skin that told me that she either had a tan or— more likely, given her features— had some Asian blood in her. Her eyes— even from forty feet or so, I was pretty sure they had the epicanthic fold that denotes Asian ancestry, and I thought they were brown. Also, I was pretty sure that she was really pretty….

(What? I'm a _guy_. We can't help but notice that sort of thing, even when we're only ten feet or so from someone as gorgeous as Buffy. Union rules!)

She wore practical clothing, heavy canvas pants and a leather jacket over a denim shirt. She had a shinai— one of those bamboo practice swords used by students of kendo, the art of wielding a katana— in her right hand, a small pistol of some sort in her left. I could see that the shinai had runes carved or maybe burned into it, all over it, and I realized that it was her focus, like my staff was mine. Pretty cool.

She saw me looking at her— and she smiled suddenly, a wide, delighted smile that looked pretty genuine.

"Is there room on your team for one more?" she called.

Before I could answer, she leveled her shinai at a nearby member of House Méreg who'd started towards her, and a burst of gold-white force leapt out at the vampire, this time shaped like a big curved blade— like in the movie version of the Pit and the Pendulum, only it was a little smaller. It struck the vampire in the neck and his head flew off as neatly as though it had been struck by a freaking light saber.

"You save my friend's life, you get to join up," I called back. "Welcome to Team Dresden!"

She laughed, started moving my way more quickly, and called, "Behind you, Harry!"

I spun around, saw the incoming House Méreg vampire, jerked my gun out of my duster pocket, shot him three times, then popped the clip and grabbed a new one from my other pocket, holding my staff against my body with my arm while I did so. While I swapped clips, Buffy finished off the vampire for me.

For a moment, it was simply a matter of "shoot the vampires" (they should make a video game for that) as things seemed to lull just a bit. The warlocks at the middle of the muddle, they weren't doing much of anything, and I couldn't decide if they were saving up their energy for defense, simply drained by the long fight, or planning something nasty, though my money went on the last option.

Then I heard Janduski scream something in German, and I looked over her way— to find that Xander was flying backwards and away, over the crowd of normals, _Amoracchius_ in his hand, clutched close to his chest.

"MARSHALL, CATCH HIM!" I roared, even as Buffy yelled, "XANDER!"

I glanced back towards where he'd been fighting, saw Janduski backpedaling like mad from… hell's _bells,_ that had to be another Outsider!

It was oozing out of the cuts on a White Court vampire, who had been a tall and gorgeous woman, and as it oozed out, it seemed to be… eating her body. The stuff that came out of the many wounds she had was a shade of purple that, if I remembered my crayons right, the Crayola people liked to call "red-violet," which was pretty apt. It oozed out quickly, as though the thick, gelid stuff was under pressure. The gunk was translucent, allowing me to see the way the vampire at the center was being consumed by the stuff, as though it was some sort of acid. Here and there inside the gunk, things floated, glowing things in various shades of orange, red and yellow, none of them any particular shape, each flowing like— like the stuff in lava lamps, really.

The thing kept growing, devouring its former host and growing impossibly large, and generally human-shaped. It stopped at eight and a half feet tall or so, though it was also about seven feet wide, and probably a good five feet thick. It had no head, exactly, just a dome-shaped lump between the shoulders. Two things you would probably have to call arms hung from those shoulders to about where it would have knees, if it had bothered with those.

It was like a big, roughly human form made by a three year old with a bunch of translucent Play-Do. It was the general shape of a human, but too thick in every direction, and it looked… unfinished. It had no features at all, its feet were two broad pads on the ends of its thick, trunk-like legs, its hands like mittens at the ends of its arms.

Worst of all, perhaps, worse than the vaguely lava-like shapes that floated all through it, was the fact that it had no skeleton. I don't know how it kept its shape, but I'm gonna write it off as magic that I don't need (or _want)_ to understand.

The thing turned towards me, and it spoke, sort of, when it was, for lack of a better term, facing me.

"DREZZZ-DUNNN," it cried in a buzzing, shrieking voice that was much too high-pitched for comfort. "YYYOU HAVVVVVE DONNNNNE US A GREAT INNNNNSULLLT! FOR THIS YYYOU WILLLLL PAY WWWWWITH YYYOUR SOULLLLL!"

"Screw you, Lava Lamp!" I managed to say, though I don't think it could have heard me— I wasn't exactly shouting with confidence.

I had no magic left, and it was pretty damned plain that bullets weren't gonna bother "el Blobbo."

Buffy leapt at it, the Scythe out and reaching for the Outsider's, um, flesh. It hit an arm, just below the shoulder, cut through it neatly, and the arm dropped to the ground—

—where it was promptly absorbed into the Outsider's foot, or pad, or whatever— and grew out of the shoulder again fast enough that it got a frighteningly quick swing off at Buffy. She went under the swing, tried to take out a leg with the Scythe, didn't even succeed in chopping the leg off— it grew back together behind the passing blade, and Buffy wisely backed off, got out of the thing's reach.

It started towards me, and I backed up, thinking furiously. I had a big fat zero on the magic meter, and had no idea what to do next— except maybe call for a retreat.

A hand landed on my arm, and I glanced down to see my mystery helper, who was both as Asian and as pretty as I'd thought. She looked at me, her brown eyes serious, and said, "Shouldn't you be attacking that thing? You're the strongest wizard here, after all."

"I'm tapped out," I said, still backing up, keeping an eye on the blob-like Outsider. "I've taken two of these damned things down already, but the last one— magically, I couldn't light a candle."

"Oh," the girl said— and she smiled at me, an almost impish grin, then added, "I can fix that. Put your gun away, please."

I did as she asked as she tugged me backwards more rapidly for a moment, then stopped and took both of my hands in hers. She muttered something in a language that sounded like singing— and suddenly, I felt magic flowing out from her hands, into mine, a charge of magic like— like I hadn't felt since I'd drawn in as much magic as I could before the Knights of the Blackened Denarius cut me off from all magic with a greater circle, back in the case that had gotten Michael hurt.

I stared at my new teammate for a moment after, watched as she puffed for breath and armed sweat off of her forehead. "That's all I can do without a circle and a ritual, Harry— so for God's sake, make it be enough!

"If it helps any, I think that's the last Outsider here."

"Who _are_ you!" I asked, staring at her in wonder— I'd never even _heard_ of a wizard being able to pass their power to another wizard, let alone doing it without a circle or ritual.

"I'm a friend," she said, and her smile was so big, so delighted, that I probably would have accepted that as enough, but she went on. "Also, I play a mean harmonica!"

I stared for a second understanding the message that she'd been the blind boy outside the funeral home at Charity Carpenter's visitation, then pointed a stern finger at her and said, "Don't you dare run off or get killed before we have a chance to talk, lady!"

She laughed, nodded, and said, "Go kill that thing, please?"

I nodded, turned to see Buffy beside me, looking from me to the mystery girl with an expression of something like amusement. "What he said," Buffy added. "He's grumpy when he doesn't know what's going on."

"You have my word, sworn on my power," the Asian girl said solemnly, "that I will not leave before I explain myself to Harry, and any he chooses to have with him. And that I will try very, very hard, not to get killed!"

"DREZZZ-DUNNN!" Lava-Blob screeched as it got a little closer. "IIIII HUNNNNNNGER! COMMMME, LLLLLLET MMME FEAST ONNN YYYOUR SOULLLL!"

"Would you shut up already!" I said, turning to face it. "Jeeze, you sound like the bad guy from some direct-to-video fantasy movie, or something! Get some better dialogue, if you want to play in my league!"

It bellowed— and raised a hand my way. I got my shield up, again on all three levels, since I had no idea what was coming, then relaxed the fire and electricity defenses as a gel-like blob of goop hit my shield and slid off. I started to move towards Lava-Blob to line up a better shot, but Buffy grabbed my arm and jerked me sideway, hard enough that my feet actually left the ground.

"What the hell— oh!" I looked at the pavement I'd been about to step on, saw the acidic whatever-the-hell the Lava-Blob had shot at me eating the pavement away like the acidic alien blood in the Alien movies. "Thanks, Buffy."

"No problem. Just kill it, already, okay?"

"On it." I turned back to the Lava-Blob and drew my blasting rod from my duster. I leveled the rod, called up my power, wrapped a healthy dose of Soulfire around it, and roared, _"PYROFUEGO!"_

Again, silver-white fire leapt out of my blasting rod, this time a thicker beam, since I wasn't as terrified, didn't have quite as much fear to lend me focus. It hit Lava-Blob pretty much center mass, around where its navel would have been if it had a navel. Immediately, the fire started to spread inwards— then stopped, and simply burned Lava-Blob's skin furiously for a long moment, but didn't go any deeper, didn't spread.

Crap.

"IIII AMMMM THE PATIENNNNNT DEATH," Lava-Blob screeched. "IIII DO NNNNNNOT FEAR YYYOUR FIRE, LLLLITTLLLE WIZARD!"

Even as it spoke, the fire began to gutter out, and one of the glowing orange-yellow worm things flowed into the hole where it had burned, solidified, and turned the same off-fuchsia shade as the rest of the thing's skin.

"Oh, that's _so_ not good!" Buffy said. "Harry, what next!"

I looked inside myself as Buffy and the Asian girl tugged me backwards, all of us retreating from Lava-Blob, and figured that I had enough juice for one more serious spell— so I had to choose the right thing.

"Only one choice, really," I said, gently disentangling myself from the two of them. I put my blasting rod back in my inner duster pocket and hefted my staff. "Force, against that thing? Kind of pointless, even if I made it edge-shaped. It'd just patch itself, pull itself together— something. Air blast? I doubt I could stagger it, let alone hurt it that way.

"Well, that thing may not burn, but electricity does more than just burn!"

Again, I gathered up my will, and again, I added Soulfire to the spell I crafted. I decided that, since this thing was so big, and the glowing worm-things seemed to be part of it, but independent, too, I'd go with my newer version of the lightning spell.

"Hey, you walking lava lamp!" I shouted at the Lava-Blob. "Got a question for you; 'do you know what happens to a toad when it's struck by lightning?' "

I guess Lava-Blob didn't care, and didn't get the X-men reference, because it just let out a wordless, spine-wracking scream of hate, and kept moving my way at its endless, plodding pace.

"_FULMINOS DIRUPTUM!"_ I bellowed— and a ball of blue-silver energy the size of a basketball poured out of my staff, flew across the distance between me and the Lava-Blob, hit it again center mass (don't be impressed with my aim— its center mass was bigger than most archery targets), and poured _into_ the thing.

Immediately, lines of electrical energy started spreading out from the impact point to each of the many glowing worm-things that floated through "the Patient Death," linking them all in a web of lightning that was… well, really cool-looking, if I do say so myself.

When the last of the worm-things had been connected to the web of lightning, the whole thing flared a brilliant white— and Lava-Blob, "the Patient Death," whatever the hell you want to call him, blew up like an electric skyrocket.

Again, the pieces either burned away before they hit us, or turned into ectoplasm and evaporated before they got to us. Either way, it was kind of a relief.

"Well," I panted as I leaned heavily on my staff, "at least he didn't slime me!"

I sank to the ground, exhausted beyond words, and Buffy came to kneel beside me. "You okay, Harry?" she asked, looking worried. Mystery Girl dropped next to Buffy and looked at me just as worriedly.

"Exhausted," I panted. "Not hurt. Go. Fight! I'll be okay."

Which is when I heard another bellow of _**"REMEMBER ARCHANGEL!"**_— this one from a lot closer than the last— and suddenly, there were wardens and other wizards streaming past me, Buffy and the Asian Mystery Girl, heading for the center of the battle with bellows of anger and shouted spells.

Then Xander was standing over us, dripping on us, and Buffy was bouncing up to hug him. A few seconds later, all of Team Dresden was gathered around me, even Dawn and Molly, now that the seriously nasty parts were over. I managed, with help from Buffy and Sanya, to get to my feet, even as Xander gushed his thanks to Warden Marshall, who'd caught him in a ball of water as she had me— wow, just a few hours ago. It felt kind of like weeks had passed.

"Okay," I said, my voice raised to make myself heard as I faced the Mystery Girl. "Everyone in this group is someone that I trust with my life, and every damned one of them has earned that— so you can tell me now, miss— who are you!"

She smiled up at me, and her eyes— brown, not as dark as I would have expected, the color of milk chocolate— glittered with mischief and delight.

"My first name," she said, slowly, "which was chosen for me by a man who forges identities, is Janet.

"My last name— which I insisted on, so had to accept whatever first name could be attached to it— is one that I chose for myself, chose to accept after it was given to me by the man who taught me how to be free, and I would prefer it if you all use it.

"My last name…." Her smile grew, her voice became a laugh, and she finished, "…is Lash!"

I stared for a long moment, unable to speak for shock and purest delight—

— then I grabbed Lash, literally picked her up, and hugged her for all I was worth, even as she returned the favor and we both laughed and shouted like a couple of overgrown kids.


	26. Chapter 26

For most of a minute, I simply hugged Lash, laughed, and generally made an idiot of myself. Then, finally, I remembered where we were and what was— or had been— going on around us, and I let her down, let go of her, and shook myself a little.

"Lash, how— no. No, that's going to have to wait." I sighed, looked around, found Buffy looking at me with something that was almost a grin on her face, and I made a long arm, pulled her to my side. "Introductions, at least.

"Everyone— this is Lash. She's a friend, she's someone I would trust with my life— no, I would trust her with _your_ lives, that should tell you how serious I am. She saved my… well, she helped me come back from the dead. She's apparently a wizard of significant power, and the rest— it will have to wait, it's a long, complicated story.

"Lash, this is Buffy Sinclair— used to be Summers, and yes, she's the real deal, but you probably noticed that. She and her friends helped me get the rest of the way back here.

"She's also… I'm not going to call her my girlfriend, I've seen what happens to people who call her a girl. She's the woman I love."

Lash smiled, said, "I knew that last, Harry— I've known it since the night of… of Mrs. Carpenter's visitation.

"Miss Sinclair… thank you for helping Harry get home."

"Back at you," Buffy said— and her voice was relaxed, genuine. "Since we both helped him survive, you're gonna have to call me Buffy."

"Thank you, Buffy," Lash said. "I'm Lash, please."

I went through the rest, got embarrassed when I realized that I didn't know Janduski's first name (Berdina), and saved Sanya and Xander 'til last, identified them as Knights of the Cross, told Lash which blades they carried.

"It is a pleasure," Sanya said, looking at her kind of oddly. "I feel as though… I should know you."

"We… you once worked with a woman named Vivian Lavier," Lash said, her voice low and a little scared. "I… was with her, then, or… or rather, who I once was or might have been… the relationship between the… entity I was then and who I am now is… impossible to describe, Sir Knight. But I will not lie to you, so yes… after a fashion, you do know me."

"Bozhe moi," Sanya said slowly. He looked her up and down— and smiled broadly. "You can tell me of it later. I look forward to it. And you must call me Sanya, Lash."

"Thank you," she said, visibly relieved at Sanya's lack of hostility.

Xander greeted Lash with a two handed shake and a big smile. "I got the story from Harry, Lash, and I'm glad you got here, however you did it. Oh, and none of that 'sir knight' stuff. Xander, okay?"

"Okay." Lash smiled. "The sword… it suits you, Xander."

"People keep saying that," Xander said, shaking his head a little. "But me? I keep expecting to wake up."

People chuckled, and we started looking around. No one and nothing had disturbed us, so things must have calmed down, and a look around confirmed that. The civilians in the area were leaving quickly, most of them looking pale and shaky, and the wardens had started checking the bodies of the warlocks and House Méreg vampires that were here, looking for survivors. I looked around more— and saw several people approaching from where the other wardens and the Senior Council had been making their stand. I saw my Grandfather— no, I needed to think of him as my former mentor right now, or Wizard McCoy— I saw Ebenezar in the group, walking slowly and leaning on his staff more than he ever had in my memory. As the group got closer, I realized that, for the first time in my memory, he looked exhausted, barely able to stand.

Then I realized that the man leading the group was Arthur Langtry, the Merlin of the White Council of Wizards, and I sighed and braced myself for an unpleasant encounter. The Merlin has no real use for me, never has had, even when I was doing work that might have helped him. But that was okay; I didn't much like him, either.

The group got close to us, and I saw that Ancient Mai, looking as exhausted as the others, was hobbling along, leaning on the arm of a younger warden. Listens-to-Wind was there as well, and Rashid, the Gatekeeper. I saw no sign of Grigori Cristos— hell, I didn't even know if that asshole was still on the senior council— or Martha Liberty.

"Wizard Dresden," the Merlin said when he stopped maybe ten feet from me, his voice calm and level. "I must say that, while I am grateful for your timely support and your undeniable courage, I was surprised to see a man whom many believed to be quite dead coming to our rescue."

"I can see that being confusing," I said, keeping my own voice level. He was being polite, I could try it, too. "It's a long story, and this isn't the time or the place.

"You have a safehouse nearby, according to Captain Luccio— is it safe enough under these circumstances? And large enough to accommodate everyone here?"

"I do not think so," the Merlin said, and he sounded… dejected, exhausted. "But I don't know if many of the wizards here can make it back to our Headquarters from here. It was a long and… strenuous battle."

"A moment, please," I said, and touched my mother's gem, asked about getting from here to White Council Headquarters in Edinburgh, and got an answer that would probably mess with the Merlin's head. "Sir, if you allow me to lead the way, I can get us to Edinburgh in about two miles of walking, twenty minutes time if we take it slow."

The old man's eyes widened in surprise, but that was all the indication I got that I'd surprised him. "That is… astonishing. You seem to have developed your mother's talent for moving on the Ways."

"I suppose I have," I said, and gave him nothing more.

"Then by all means, Wizard Dresden, say your farewells to your friends, and let us be on our way," the Merlin told me.

Ah, okay. He was still an asshole, all right— that meant the world was still pretty much normal. Which was a relief— I was starting to think I'd gotten tossed into a parallel world, or something.

"That's not going to happen," I said, my voice firm and almost-calm. "They're responsible for saving the lives of a great many wardens and trainees as much as I am, if not more. If they aren't going to be shown a little common courtesy in return, you can find your own way back to Edinburgh, and I'll take my friends back to Chicago.

"Have a _nice_ day."

"Dresden, be reasonable," the Merlin sighed. "You know the dangers we face. We can't allow just anyone to know where our headquarters are."

"You're absolutely right," I said, nodding at him and giving him my best manic grin. "And since I don't much trust all that many of you, I'm not going to expose my friends to your bullshit politics and backstabbing ways.

"Also? I'm _not_ going leave my friends stuck in a foreign country with no passports or money, and no way to get home, either. So, you just toddle along, and I'll come by Edinburgh after I get my people home. And have a bite to eat. And a shower. And probably a night's sleep, it's late in Chicago. And I should brush Mouse, that'll take all day tomorrow, so I guess I'll see you all in a couple of days."

"All right, Dresden!" the Merlin snapped. "All right! They can come with us!"

"Thanks, Art, that's mighty neighborly of you." I gave him a hard grin, then added, "Of course, if we get there and you try to have them placed under some sort of house arrest, or any other bullshit like that? You'll have a problem. I won't do anything— but I won't try to persuade them _not to,_ either."

"You have my word, they will be treated as guests," Langtry said through gritted teeth. "I swear it, Dresden, by my power."

"Okay, then let's—"

Someone screamed, near the center of the park, and someone else yelled, "Captain Luccio, what are y—" This, too broke off in a scream, and I saw… someone shot a blast of fire at a couple of wardens who were just standing up and turning to see what was happen. They had no time to get defenses up, and they— they didn't scream for long.

"Captain Lu—" cried a familiar voice, one I thought was Chandler.

"KILL ME!" Anastasia Luccio screamed. "FOR THE LOVE OF GOD, SOMEONE KILL ME BEFORE IT OWNS ME COMPLETELY! I FEEL IT IN MY MIND, PLEASE, KILL ME BEFORE IT—"

She stopped screaming then and rose above the crowd, floating on currents of air that rippled her clothes, her cloak. In her right hand was the heavy staff she used, and in her left…

In her left hand, Ana held a glowing, pulsing rock, flaring in an eye-searing red light in a rhythm that I somehow knew was the beat of Anastasia's heart. I'd never seen one of those before, heard about one only once, and briefly— but I knew what it was before Carlos cried, _"Madre de Dios!_ Harry, that's just like the stone Corwin had!"

The stone that had made a minor talent into a wizard of such power that it took three wardens and the slayer to take him down— and while Anastasia wasn't as powerful in this body as she had been in her original one, she was no minor talent, not by a long shot.

I didn't have any juice left, so when Anastasia raised her hand and unleashed a torrent of something dark and liquid looking, it was Lash who defended us— all of us, Team Dresden, the Senior Council members, their escort— from whatever it was that Ana was attacking us with.

"_Akavay!"_ Lash cried, and held her left hand up, back to Anastasia. Energy poured from a small ring that she wore, formed into a huge, hexagon-patterned energy construct that covered us all.

The black stuff hit the energy shield, hissed and bubbled like thin, watery tar— but didn't penetrate. Even as the Captain switched tactics, tossed lightning at Lash's shield, I called, "Who's got juice left? Maybe enough to take down the Captain without hurting her?"

No one spoke, not even any of the Senior Council. Fire hit Lash's shield as I rounded on my grandfather, looked at him and said, "Sir? You're the most powerful—"

"I'm drained, son," Ebenezar replied, his voice a bare shadow of his usual hale and hearty rumble. "We all are, I think. Arthur? Rashid? Joe?"

"Couldn't light a match," Injun Joe said. "Sorry, Hoss Dresden."

"I am, for the first time in centuries, without magic," the Merlin said. "Rashid? Mai?"

"You know I have no power left," Mai said, her voice breathy, like that of a little girl in the middle of an asthma attack.

"I have not had magic since the enemy's last push," Rashid said, his voice deep and soft. "Though I am not sure how much good it would do if I did have. I have used my sight on her. Captain Luccio's mind is being systematically destroyed— and the thing which possesses her is an Outsider."

"What! No, that— she's the Captain!" I cried. Green light played over Lash's shield, elicited a hiss and a sharp word from Lash. "She can't be possessed by some stupid _rock!"_

"Okay, well, you're out of juice, Harry," Buffy said, hefting the Scythe. "Leave this one to me!"

Before I could say anything, Buffy took off, ran to the right side of Lash's shield, putting her nearest the hand that Captain Luccio held the stone in. Even as I was yelling and starting after her, Xander knocked me aside, staggered me, and Sanya actually knocked me down, cried, "Stay here, Dresden!" and charged out after the other two.

Xander and Sanya, while they meant well, could've just stayed behind the shield.

It's easy to forget what Buffy is, what she can do. I mean, I'd just been fighting beside her, relying on her to cover my back, in two of the uglier battles of my life, and still— I didn't think about her power, the way it made her a great fighter by itself— and the years and years of training that she'd piled on top of that power, making her into something that was damned near _mythical_.

As Buffy went around the shield, the Captain turned her attention to the slayer, began firing bolts of various energies out of her staff, trying to take her attacker out before she could get close. Didn't happen; Buffy was too fast, moving at speeds that reminded me for the thousandth time that she was not just a human being, but something _more_. She almost _blurred_ as she moved, and Luccio's attacks just kept missing her as Buffy ran past the Captain, got her to turn and follow Buffy for just a moment.

Buffy spun on a dime, right after an attack missed her— and she _threw the Scythe_.

Anastasia, or whatever was possessing her, put up a shield of chaotically swirling red energy immediately, but the Scythe cut through it as though it wasn't even there—

—and took off Anastasia's left hand just above the wrist.

Immediately, Ana dropped to the ground without a sound. She hit on her feet, dropped her staff, and clutched at the stump of her left forearm with her right hand, trying to contain the bleeding. Lash dropped her shield even as Anastasia fell to her knees, then over sideways.

Lash beat me to the Captain, and she did— well, she did something that had to be done, though I could see that it bothered her. She grabbed Anastasia's bleeding stump, capped it with her own hand, and whispered a pair of words. Fire flashed for just a moment, a fire so contained that it was barely visible— and Ana's bleeding stopped, the wound cauterized. She was conscious, or seemed to be, but she was babbling in Italian, and her eyes… her eyes were not the eyes of a sane person.

Others were coming, but Lash ignored them, looked at Ana sadly— then took the Captain's right hand in both of hers and held it, staring at her.

The others arrived then, Buffy first— but Lash ignored everything, just held Ana's good hand and stared at her face.

"Was I fast enough?" Buffy asked, her voice worried. "Is she— will she be… okay?"

"I do not think it could be so," Rashid said from behind me. "The possession went too far, Buffy, before even you could react.

"I think her mind is… wounded past all help."

"No," Lash near-whispered. "Not past all help, Wizard. Never past _all_ help."

"I don't think—" the Gatekeeper started.

"Hush." Lash's voice was quiet, calm— but it packed authority. She took a long, deep breath, and spoke softly. "Lord… I have no right to ask, but it is not for myself. I ask for your help for this woman, a good woman, a woman who stands and fights for those she does not even know, who faces evil in the name of good.

"Please, Lord… Father. Please, Father, help her, that she might continue to stand against those who do the work of Those Who Fell."

It wasn't big, it wasn't dramatic— but a soft white light, so soft it might have been an illusion, save that we all saw it, shone around Anastasia Luccio's hand where it lay between Lash's hands, and then it moved up her arm… and settled into her head.

Immediately, the twitches that had been running through Ana's body stopped, the look of horror on her face faded… and she fell into a deep sleep.

Lash sat back after a moment, lowered Ana's right hand to lay on her stomach— and let out a single sob, a sound that mingled relief and sadness— and pure, unadulterated joy, joy in the knowledge that she had truly been accepted back into the fold, that she was once again a Child of God. I got that, I understood it— and I knew what I had to do, as soon as I could.

I heard muttering in a bunch of languages coming from behind me, and I straightened up and looked around. Ana's severed hand lay a few feet off, still wrapped around that disgusting, pulsing stone. I pointed at it, and called, "Someone with some defensive magics available to them, get a pair of heavy gloves and grab that thing."

"I got enough juice left for that, Harry," Carlos said, jerking his eyes away from the resting form of Anastasia Luccio. "I know how to handle that thing, too. I got it."

"Hey, Lash?" Buffy said from where she knelt across from the smaller woman. "Thank you. I hate to lose, and if not for you, we would've lost her anyway."

"Not me," Lash whispered, smiling around her tears. "Not me, Buffy."

"_You asked,"_ Buffy said firmly. "That counts in my book."

"All right," Lash said, and she looked up at me. "We should probably go soon— the local authorities won't stay away much longer, that spell to keep people away is… fading. I feel it going.

"If I give you a boost again, Harry, can you get us to Edinburgh?"

"Yeah, and it won't have to be a big boost, like it was last time," I agreed. "Lash… Ana is a friend. A good friend. Thank you— pass that up the ladder, will you?"

That got me a brilliant smile, and she took my hands and gave me power again, to the sheer, dropped-jaw fascination of the members of the Senior Council who were there. (Well, to every wizard there, actually— but the Senior Council, since they knew more about how impossible that should have been, were more flabbergasted than the rest.)

Five minutes later, we were organized enough to go into the Nevernever, and, thanks to some hints from the Gatekeeper, I managed to keep my gate open long enough for everyone to go through— though I nearly lost it at the end, when the last of the wardens who were carrying the bodies of the fallen passed by me— and I saw that they carried Chandler. Steed. Ana had killed four wardens before the entity possessing her started attacking the group that had contained Team Dresden and the Senior Council, the first one a middle-aged man I didn't know, the second a pair of trainees I'd only met briefly… and the last Chandler.

I hadn't known the guy all that well, no— but I'd liked him, trusted him… and I knew that it would hurt Ana a hundred times worse than it hurt me to see him dead.

I got everyone to the Council HQ, and then I did something… well, it wasn't going to make me any friends, but it was something I had to do, and I felt like I had to do it right away, not wait for. I caught the Gatekeeper before he went in— he'd walked in the rear, making sure no one fell out of our little column— and asked him to keep an eye on my friends for me for a few minutes.

"Dresden, this is not the time to go—" he started.

"Listen, this is… this is an obligation bigger than the one I have to the Council, sir," I said, shaking my head. "It's… I owe it to a dead man, and… and maybe even to the guy upstairs.

"I won't be long— I know a way that's even shorter than the standard route. Just… make sure my friends are treated fairly for half an hour, please?"

The Gatekeeper's eyes sought mine, held them for just a moment, then he nodded slowly and said, "All right, Wizard Dresden. But be quick— I do not think the slayer will be happy that you go without her."

"Ouch," I winced. I thought for a second, then said, "Ask her to keep an eye on Lash for me? I don't want the Merlin badgering her about who she is and how she does what she does, and Buffy is good at running interference."

Wizard Rashid chuckled softly, then said, "Yes, that may keep her from being angry with you. Well done, young man."

I nodded my thanks, turned, and set off for Chicago and my apartment. I hadn't been kidding about knowing a shorter route, and I made it back to Edinburgh and the HQ in under twenty-five minutes. I entered, passed through the security checkpoints, and found that Rashid had left word to expect me, and to bring me immediately to the Senior Council's Ostentatiatory, the big lounge where the Senior Council could hang out and be Senior Wizards in levels of comfort that left me thinking of the more decadent days of ancient Rome.

I came in just in time to hear the Merlin say, "But with power like yours, we simply have to have you on the White Council, Ms. Lash! Surely you aren't going to refuse—"

"I don't _want_ to join the White Council!" Lash said, her voice heated. I looked around, spotted her and the rest of Team Dresden over at a table near the ever present buffet, Lash standing up and facing the Merlin, who loomed over her. Buffy stood beside Lash, and I could see that she was getting tired of the Merlin, even as Lash added, "I have no intention of assisting your enemies, Wizard Langtry, and I am willing to aid the Council when I can, but I _will not join you!"_

"Don't be absurd," Langtry scoffed. He drew himself up and said, "A refusal to join the White Council could be seen as—"

"You need to shut up, Artie, before you say so much as one more word," I said in a too-loud voice as I strode that way, one hand in my duster pocket, holding something concealed under my coat, the other using my staff to punctuate my remarks with little thumps as it hit the floor.

"Wizard Dresden, this is none of your affair!" the Merlin snapped at me. "This woman has power that is far too great to allow her to operate unsupervised, and if she will not join the Council, then—"

"SHUT UP!" I roared as I finished my approach. "So help me, Langtry, if you make a threat against her after _giving your word_ to treat her as a guest? I will see you charged with a violation of the Unseelie Accords _myself!"_

That shut him up— and left me as the sole target of his glare. I could deal. I've been glared at by a lot scarier than him— and kicked its ass for looking at me funny.

"My… apologies, Ms. Lash," the Merlin growled. "We will continue this discussion another time, after I've—"

"After you've flapped your arms and flown to the moon to bring me back ten pounds of green cheese, you'll continue this discussion," I said, giving Langtry my best, sunniest, 'screw you, asshole' smile. "The lady has another obligation that takes precedence over any you imagine that she has to the White Council."

"And what obligation," the Merlin growled between clenched teeth, "might that be, Dresden?"

I ignored him, turned to face a confused Lash and the now-grinning Buffy, and held my staff out to the latter. "Hold this for me for a minute, please, Buffy?"

She took it, and her grin widened. I glanced behind her, saw Xander and Sanya both grinning hugely, and knew that they had figured out what I was doing— and approved.

"Lash," I said, not moving any closer to her, "I saw what you did for Captain Luccio— or, rather, what you asked the man upstairs to do. Well… he answered you, he helped her— and that tells me that I'm doing the right thing."

I reached under my duster, took out the slightly-curved walking stick that was, in reality, the sheathed blade _Fidelacchius,_ the first Sword of the Cross that had been entrusted to my care. I offered it to her, held my hands out straight with it balanced on my palms and said softly, "This is yours. Your faith… what you've gone through to prove that faith… _Fidelacchius_ belongs to you, Lash."

For a long, long moment, Lash simply stared at the sword balanced on my palms in silence. Finally, her hands moving slowly, but with purpose, she took _Fidelacchius_ in both hands, lifted it— then drew the blade slowly and with care. She looked at it, turned it this way and that… then shot it back into the sheathe without looking, and at full speed.

"Thank you, Harry," she whispered— and flung herself at me in a hug.

I hugged her, and I looked at the Merlin over the top of her head and said, in my best smartass tone, _"That_ obligation, Art."

The Merlin didn't answer me, just turned and strode off towards his quarters without another word.

I marked that down in the "win" column.

Then I sat down with my friends, Ebenezar, and Rashid, and I ate enough to kill a lesser man while I told them about how I'd happened to come to their rescue. When I'd finished, Ebenezar looked at Lash and said, "Young lady, I don't know how you knew that we were in trouble, but I thank you deeply for telling Harry— and for helping us yourself."

"You're very welcome, sir," Lash said, smiling at him. "As for how I knew… Michael told me."

"Michael? Michael Carpenter?" Ebenezar said, looking confused. "How did he—"

"No, sir, not Michael Carpenter," Lash said. "The _other_ Michael. The Michael who recruited him."

Ebenezar's eyes widened as he got it, and he said a very quiet, "Oh."

"Yes," Sanya said. "This only confirms what I already knew. Harry made the right choice."

"Thank you," Lash said, and showed the big Russian her dimples.

I had a thought then, and I sat up straight. "Hey, the prisoners and wounded we left in the Nevernever—"

"Escorted in while you were eating, Harry," Ebenezar said. "The prisoners… well, between your first group and the ones we managed to take at the second battle, we've got almost sixty of them. Interrogating them will be a couple of days yet, but…." My grandfather looked sideways at Rashid for a moment, then at Rose Killian and Elaine Marshall, who'd stuck with us. Then he said, slowly, "Well, I'm hoping that we can establish that there is, _in undeniable fact,_ a group opposing the White Council, and learn something about them."

"One of them…." I hesitated a moment, then said, "Sir, one of the prisoners is the son of two of the Order of the Blackened Denarius."

"Matthias is working with them!" Lash gasped— and got sharp looks from both my grandfather and the Gatekeeper.

"Yes, he is," I said softly. I looked up at Ebenezar and Rashid and said, "This isn't the time, sirs. But let me tell you something I told my friends earlier, maybe it will help you… accept her.

"Lash helped me get back from the dead. I would trust her with the lives of any of my friends— and that decision has been ratified kinda strongly, you know?" I tilted my head in the direction of the Sword of Faith, leaning against Lash's leg. "She's my friend— no, she's _family,_ and I don't use that word lightly."

My grandfather's eyes crinkled a little as he smiled at me, and Rashid nodded slowly, thoughtfully.

"All right, Harry," Ebenezar said. "I will need to hear anything she can tell me about Matthias, before I interrogate him— it'll be me that does that, because of my… position."

I got it— my Grandfather was the Blackstaff, the Council's hit man, rule-breaker, and hardcore enforcer. He had access to a magical staff that somehow protected him from the darkness of acts that would normally corrupt a wizard, turn them into a Warlock. He could interrogate the prisoners, use magic to invade their minds and rip out the truth— and not become a monster for doing so. He didn't like doing it, I had no illusions about that since watching him use the staff to kill soldiers at Chichen Itza when he'd come to help me and my friends rescue Maggie— but he had the strength to do what was necessary.

"We can talk about it… anywhere but here, sirs," I said, looking at Rashid to make sure he understood that he was included in the invitation. In explanation, I looked around at the wizards milling around the Ostentatiatory and shaking my head. "Too many people here for my comfort.

"But I think we should all get some rest before we do much of anything else— I'm wiped out, and I wasn't fighting anywhere near as long as you two."

"You raise a good point, boy," Ebenezar said, and he started to stand, but aborted the motion and sat back in his chair when he saw something behind me.

I looked over my shoulder and saw Joseph "Injun Joe" Listens-to-Wind, the best healer on the Senior Council and a man I respected a hell of a lot, coming towards us, moving as though he had lead weights attached to every joint, but moving steadily anyway.

"Joseph," Rashid said when the old Native American medicine man got close (beating Ebenezar to it by a fraction of a second, I think), "what news of Captain Luccio?"

"The news is… well, her mind is clear, her abilities unimpaired, and she is not— not tainted by the black magic she used." Injun Joe shook his head and looked sideways at Lash. "For that, we owe you, young lady— because you cared enough to ask your god for help, and he cared enough to answer, we owe you both."

"You owe me nothing," Lash said, smiling a little. "I meant what I said; she is a warrior for the side of good, and deserved better than to fall to something like… like that _thing_."

"Owe you I said, owe you I meant," the old wizard said firmly. Then he sighed and sat slowly down between my grandfather and Rashid. "She's not without her pain, though— though she knows it wasn't her doing it, she remembers killing people who were her friends, her students, her responsibility, and that… it may never leave her, not completely. It has marked her— and she has stated her intent to step down as Captain of the Wardens."

"Oh, damn," Ebenezar said with a sigh. He looked at Injun Joe and asked, "Does she mean it, you think?"

"She means it, I know," Injun Joe replied. "She says she cannot command again, for she will not ask people to trust her. I told her she didn't have to ask, and she said that she didn't trust herself the right way, not any more."

We all sat silent for a moment, and when I opened my mouth to suggest that I talk to her, Injun Joe shook his head at me. "No, Hoss Dresden. Her mind is made up, and I believe that attempting to change it would be bad for her mental and emotional health.

"She says that she will still teach wardens, but she will not command and she will not go into the field. She means it— and I believe it is best for her."

I sat silent for a moment, then nodded grudgingly.

"One more thing for the Senior Council to do," Ebenezar sighed, rubbing at his eyes. "We'll have to pick her successor from among the regional commanders. Harry? Any thoughts on that?"

"Yeah," I said immediately. "Anybody but me."

"You mean," Carlos said immediately, "anybody but you or me."

"Right, sorry— I forget that you're sane, sometimes," I said, smiling at him.

"_You_ forget that _I'm_ sane?" Carlos said, staring at me in disbelief. "Have you heard the plans that come out of your mouth, _hermano? You're_ the insane one!"

"Point," I admitted. "Still— you don't want either of us, sir— we'd insist on doing the job the way we think it should be done, and that would give the Merlin a stroke. Or maybe an embolism. Aneurysm?

"Hmm. Well, then again…."

Rashid chuckled, Injun Joe joined him, and Ebenezar outright guffawed.

"I see your point, Hoss, but I think you're right," my grandfather said. "For right now, at least, that job needs to go to someone at least a little more old-school than either of you young pups.

"Which isn't to say that we couldn't use someone with at least a little more modern outlook, someone who maybe likes the idea of that Paranet you set up, Harry. Maybe we could use that to get to the young ones before they go bad… we'll have to see what's out there in the way of candidates, I guess.

"For right now… this old man needs his sleep."

"Uh, before you go, sir," I said, holding up a finger, "I have a question.

"Who's _on_ the Senior Council nowadays, anyway? Is Cristos still a member? What about Martha Liberty? I didn't see either of them at the battle."

"Cristos is dead," Rashid said, his voice flat and hard. "He was collaborating with the Red Court, planning to set himself up as the Merlin, after the Red Court's plague decimated the Council.

"He was replaced by the man who should, perhaps, have had his seat originally, were it not for the… intricacies of politics. Klaus the Toymaker has that seat, now. He and Martha Liberty are both still recovering from the effects of the Red Court plague, and are not in such good health that they may enter battle, yet."

"And the people that the Merlin was worried about leaving the White Council if he didn't appoint Cristos when he did?" I asked.

"They are being very, very quiet and helpful, these days," Ebenezar said with a snort. "See, Hoss, Rashid confronted Cristos with the evidence he'd found of the man's betrayal publicly, here at a meeting of the Council, just before the Battle of Chichen Itza. Cristos… he tried to kill Rashid, Martha Liberty, and Ancient Mai right in front of a whole bunch of wizards. Those who were in Cristos's corner when he was appointed to the Senior Council? They're being good boys and girls, trying to show how very not-in-the-know about his ambitions they were.

"Now… I'm going to bed, boy— and I think you and your friends need to head for home, get some rest yourselves."

I couldn't really argue that. I said my goodnights to my grandfather, Rashid and Injun Joe, then looked at Killian and Marshall. "Where do you two live? Might be able to drop you off on my way home."

"Ever heard of Normal, Illinois?" Killian asked, raising an eyebrow at me.

"Sure, it's about a hundred and thirty miles south of Chicago," I said, and smiled at Killian's look. "Oh, come on. Illinois State University's there, after all.

"So, anyplace in particular in Normal?"

"Uh, anywhere downtown," Killian said, looking at Marshall for confirmation.

"Ah— I can do that," I said, after consulting my mother's gem. I grinned. "Only adds about two minutes of travel time to our twelve minute walk to Chicago."

"Are you sure?" Marshall asked. "I mean, we can stay here in the wardens' barracks, it's no big deal."

"Two minutes of travel time after you fought on Team Dresden is no trouble, either," I countered. "Come on, folks, let's get out of here."

Fifteen minutes later, we stepped out into the alley behind the little mom-and-pop grocery three blocks from my place, the one where I did a lot of my shopping, having dropped off Killian and Marshall in front of the Normal Theater in downtown Normal. I looked up at the sky, still dark above the lights of the city— but definitely lightening.

"I'm getting too old for these all-nighters," I groused. I looked around at the people with me, fixed on Molly and Sanya. "You two need a ride?"

"We will get a cab," Sanya assured me. "We'll be fine, Dresden."

"Okay," I said, and reached out to pull Molly into a hug. "You, young Jedi, made your teacher proud as hell in the last ten hours or so. Thank you, Molly— for your help, and for making me look good."

"Never a problem, Boss," Molly said against my chest. Then she pulled back, grinned up at me and said, "Pay me back, and don't look while I kiss Carlos goodnight— he can get all shy."

I snorted, bit back the urge to make some comment involving "the V-word," and nodded. "Fair enough.

"Lash… where are you staying, I never asked."

"Hotel," she said around a yawn. "Not far from here."

"Not cool," Buffy said. She looked at Lash and said, "I have a guest room, and I won't be going to bed for at least an hour. It's yours if you want to get your stuff and come back."

Lash looked surprised, but not unpleasantly so, and she said, "Are you sure, Buffy?"

"I'm sure." Buffy grinned at her and said, "You pulled our fat out of the fire, saved a lot of lives, including probably mine, certainly one of Harry's friends— directly, I mean, a _lot_ of his friends indirectly, and as much as any of the rest of us did.

"Besides, this way you're close, and Harry and the rest of us can hear about how you got here that much sooner.

"So… _mi casa, su casa,_ Lash."

Lash smiled, then nodded and laughed. "All right— yes, thank you."

"You want a ride?" I asked around a yawn.

"No, I'll catch a cab," Lash said, her voice almost stern. "You need sleep far worse than I do— I know how much magic you used, and the effects that has on you, remember?"

"Yes, mom," I said with a sigh.

"I'll be at your building in forty minutes or so, then, thank you again, Buffy." Lash smiled around at everyone there and said, "It has been a delight to meet you all— and I look forward to getting to know you better."

That should have sounded awkward, or prim and prissy, or… something. But it didn't, because she really meant it, which made my friends smile.

As Lash walked towards the corner to catch a cab, Buffy took my arm and said, "Forty minutes, she said. Think we can get a proper good night kiss done in that much time, Harry?"

"Well," I drawled as we headed for my building, "I think we can at least get a good start."

She laughed, and the rest of our friends, minus Molly and Sanya, fell in behind us as we headed for home.

We got that kiss in, and I hugged Lash goodnight, too, before I went to my room and Buffy and Lash when to Buffy's place.

I showered briefly, fell into bed— and got a whole four hours of sleep before Toot-Toot showed up with the news that the Guard had found the man who had murdered Charity Carpenter.


	27. Chapter 27

_Lash:_

Seeing Harry again, actually touching him for the first time, hugging him… I felt so alive, more alive than ever, simply from that. I mean— not a lot of people had actually touched me in other than a clinical fashion since I had come to life as a human— only Dawn, the slayer's sister, and Harry, really, and it was… a little overwhelming.

Then Buffy offered me her guest room, which surprised me, pleased me— and made me a little nervous. I assumed she had some motive other than the one she stated, and felt rather small after I discovered that she truly didn't.

When I returned to Harry's building, I rang Buffy's bell, thinking Harry would be in bed, but he was with her, in her apartment. When I arrived, Harry hugged me goodnight, kissed Buffy firmly-but-not-too-firmly, then went off to bed and sleep.

Buffy showed me where the guest room was, showed me the bathroom (right across from it), assured me that she had her own off of her room and that I needn't worry about hot water or hogging the bathroom, then told me good night and started to turn away.

"I— yes, goodnight, then," I said, surprised that she hadn't said anything about what I assumed was on her mind.

She caught my surprise and looked back at me, her head cocked in question.

"I… thought you would be… I thought you would have questions," I admitted, starting to blush. "Or perhaps… perhaps cautions?"

Buffy looked at me uncomprehendingly for a moment, then her eyes widened a little, and she said, "Oh! Oh, you thought— nah. Seriously, Lash, it's all good. I get it. Or if I don't get it, I'm not thinking you're going to… I don't know, make a play for Harry?"

"Oh." I sat down on the bed and sighed. "I'm sorry, I assumed…. Buffy, I look like a human being to you, but I'm _not_. I see things… differently, still. From the point of view of who I was, not… not who I've become.

"I want to be a good person, but I still… I judge people by what I have witnessed down the millennia, what I manipulated them into doing when I was… when I was Lasciel. Perhaps more… more _wrongly,_ I judge people by how Lasciel manipulated them, how… how who I used to _be_ manipulated them."

"Oh," Buffy said, leaning in the door. She looked thoughtful, then said, "You may have a hard time with that for a while, Lash, but I think… I think being around Team Dresden will help you adjust, and adjust pretty fast. Harry's a good man, Xander's… Xander's one of you, one of the Knights— and you know what that takes, Lash, know it from both sides, so I don't need to tell you how essentially _good_ he is.

"Molly, she learned her values from her parents and from Harry, and Carlos, he wants to grow up to be Harry, only cooler, he thinks. Dawn… she grew up right, despite everything I did wrong. Also, she has a little bit of attraction to you going on, just so you know. So… you'll learn. You aren't stupid, Lash, and you aren't Lasciel anymore— so you'll learn."

I blinked and stared at her for a moment, then my mind locked onto something that she'd said and I… couldn't not ask about it, even though there were more pressing things I should have said, asked about.

"Your sister… Dawn is attracted to me?" I asked, and I felt my face flame with the blush that asking that caused, and yet I smiled, too.

"She is," Buffy said, and smiled at me. "You look like you think that's good news, maybe?"

"Well, I— I mean, anyone being attracted to me would be good news, but…." I had to stop for a moment, clasp my hands between my knees, because they wanted to just… flail around, express my confusion and make me look sillier than I already must. "But, I mean— well, she's _gorgeous,_ and she thinks _I'm_ pretty? That's… I feel very odd. Good! But… odd."

Buffy chuckled and stepped over to sit on the bed beside me. "Okay, now, first, let me tell you— you're hot, girl. I don't know what standards you used to pick your body, but… you got a hottie. Beautiful face, body that's proportionately right… hottie."

"I… thank you," I managed, fighting a silly little smile for a moment before giving up and letting it spread across my face.

"Second… while I wasn't sure that Dawn was attracted to women until recently, I've seen signs of it for years, and I'm in no way freaked out," Buffy went on. "Back when Willow and Tara were together, she crushed pretty hard on them. Both of them, as individual women and as a them.

"Third… you called her gorgeous, and that's a smile that says you're… pleased that she's attracted to you. I'm guessing that you're kinda bisexual?"

"I think so, yes," I admitted, and felt my cheeks, just starting to cool, flare up again. "I am not used to… feeling sexual attraction in and of myself. I knew how to inspire it, to use it, as Lasciel, but an angel… no, I never felt it before. But I do find Dawn to be beautiful, and… and sexy. And you, you're both. And Xander, and Carlos, and Molly… and poor Warden Luccio, and it's all a little overwhelming."

"You'll get used to it," Buffy said. She turned a little to face me, smiled and said, "Thank you, by the way, for telling me that you think I'm attractive. But… well, given what I think you expected from me tonight, I'm going to go ahead and ask— did you leave out Harry because you were trying to avoid freaking me out, or for other reasons?"

"Some of both," I admitted. I closed my eyes for a moment, then said, "On a purely physical level, Harry is very attractive. I just… it would feel wrong to be attracted to him more than… than peripherally. It would feel like…."

"Like incest, maybe?" Buffy asked, her voice calm and understanding.

"Yes!" I said, relieved to have a word to hang on it. "Yes, thank you!"

"You're welcome." She smiled at me and said, "I get it. I know Dawn's an utter babe, but… yeah. Incest. I thought maybe that was why I don't feel any sense of 'other woman Harry loves, she must be the enemy,' or any other cave-woman crap."

"I love Harry," I told her, very seriously. "He gave me life, Buffy. Gave me my freedom. But yes, it would feel… like incest. I know him so well, on so many levels, it's like something more than a soul-gaze. He's— I don't think of him as a father, but a brother? A big brother who taught me much, raised me like a father, but is still my brother?

"Yes. I love him, I take delight in hugging him, holding his hand— I hope that's all right?" Buffy nodded, and I went on. "I love him, I will always love him— but it isn't romantic love, and I don't think it ever could be.

"I am very glad he has found you, Buffy— for you fit with him like two pieces of a puzzle."

Buffy blushed then, and smiled. "Thank you, Lash. I'm glad, too— and I'm glad we got all the awkward out, so that it can go away.

"Oh, and so there's no questions or worry later… if you end up dating my sister, I'll be cool with that. If you don't, okay, cool with that, too. But I don't want you hesitating to seize a moment if one comes along, just because you're worried that I won't like it. I'm utterly cool with it."

"I… thank you," I said, and rolled my eyes as heat rose into my cheeks yet _again_. "Good grief, how do you deal with everyone being able to see any time you're flattered, or embarrassed or… well, all those other things that can make your face turn red?"

"Practice, Lash," Buffy said, and reached over to squeeze my hand. "Lots and lots of practice."

She stood, pulled me up by the hand she held, and asked, "Hug?"

"Hug," I agreed, and stepped into the circle of her arms, wrapped mine around her and squeezed as she did.

"You give good hugs, for someone who's not had a lot of practice," she said, and smiled as I blushed yet _again_. "Okay, I'm gonna grab a shower and get some sleep. Good night, Lash."

"Good night, Buffy," I said— and I followed her example.

The telephone ringing in the living room woke me some four hours later, when Harry called down to tell us that the Za Lord's Guard had come through at last.

_Harry:_

I was dreaming about something unpleasant when something shoving against my temple woke me. I muttered, "Go away, Mouse," and tried to roll over and go back to sleep.

"Harry, wake up!" said a high, piping voice next to my head. "We have found him, Harry! The villain who stole away Lady Charity's life!"

That got my attention enough for me to sit up and look at Toot-Toot, who was kneeling on the edge of my bed. "You guys found him! Excellent! Thanks, Toot. Let me— wait, is there any sign that he's ready to flee, or— or kill someone again?"

"No, Harry," the faerie replied. "When I took Cerise and we looked to make sure Maize had the right van and man, he was sleeping on a bed in the back of the van. That was just five minutes ago.

"But… he did kill someone last night, Harry, one of the Guard found the woman. We managed to tell the city guardsman that you like— the dark one who drives you around sometimes— about her and where to find her, all without being seen. He came here, but you weren't here, so he went away."

"Damn, I wish I'd… I wish I'd known." I sighed and stood up. "Okay, he's sleeping I can shower, after I call for some back up. Wait here, Toot? Do you want something to eat?"

"Is there pizza?" Toot asked hopefully.

"Actually, there is— if you don't mind it cold."

He didn't mind, and I got out the box from a couple-three days back, let him go nuts while I called Buffy and told her what was up.

"Is there time to eat something?" she asked.

"Seems like it, yeah." I shook my head, trying to wake up the rest of the way. "I'm gonna shower, or I'm gonna be useless."

"Okay," Buffy said. "I'll call the others— don't argue, Harry, they have a right to help with this."

"Okay," I said, then added, "but talk to Sanya, not Molly, and tell him that if she's not awake, I'd rather he didn't wake her. She's not ready for this, Buffy."

She hesitated for a moment, then sighed. "I'll put it to him, but I think you're wrong. She's the one who calmed Daniel down when he went off on how unfair this was, remember?"

Crap. She had a point. "Okay, I withdraw the request. Thanks, Buffy."

She knew what I meant, that I was thanking her for preventing me from making a mistake that might have hurt Molly— and my relationship with her.

"No problem, Harry. Come down when you're ready to go."

I woke Carlos up, showered, ate a couple of egg sandwiches while standing up— and found Mouse sitting at my feet, his lead in his mouth, when I finished.

"Uh, Mouse, this is a—" I started.

Mouse chuffed around his mouthful of lead, shoved the end meant for a human hand under my hand, and wagged his tail just once.

"I say we bring him," Carlos said, smiling a little. "I know he's as smart as you, maybe even as smart as me—" Mouse looked over his shoulder at Carlos and made a soft little sighing sound that managed to convey his opinion of who the smartest person in the room was, and believe me, he was counting himself as a person. "—and if he wants to come along, I want him to come along."

"Okay, then," I said, nodding. "But you get to walk him before we go."

Carlos snorted, but nodded agreement.

Ten minutes later, I pulled Captain Midnight out into morning traffic, Carlos, Dawn, Xander and Lash crowded together in the back seat, me driving, Buffy beside me, Toot-Toot sitting on the dashboard, and Mouse hanging his head out the passenger's side window. (It's a testament to how big that car was that Buffy actually had room to move while sitting between me and my _dogasaurus rex_. And no one seemed hideously uncomfortable in the backseat. In fact, Dawn, sitting between Xander and Lash, looked pretty happy….)

"Sanya is bringing Molly, they'll meet us at a convenient store that Molly says is a couple of blocks from the address Toot gave you," Buffy said as we drove. "Murphy's driving herself, and said that she had a message from Detective Rawlins— there was another murder last night, but they got word of it… oddly."

"That was me, Lady Slayer," Toot-Toot said from the dashboard. "One of the guard found the woman, recognized the way she was killed and marked, and told me, so I went and looked at the signs on building and street, and the numbers on the building, copied them onto some paper as best I could, and drew a picture of the dead woman on the paper, too. Then I left it on the dark-skinned man's table while he was getting more of that coffee-stuff they drink."

"Ah, that explains it," Buffy said, smiling a little. "That was pretty smart, General. Thanks."

"You're welcome," Toot said, and gave her a big cheesy grin. "We know Harry works with them, and since I was the one who gave him the news that sent him out of the city, I thought it should be my responsibility to notify the city guard."

"General, the next time I get pizza, you're getting one all to yourself," I said firmly. "Don't hesitate to remind me if I forget."

"I won't!" Toot said.

We arrived at the convenience store Molly had suggested to find Sanya and Molly leaning against Michael's truck, talking to Murphy, who leaned against her own car, parked right next to it. They all had drinks, Molly a Red Bull, Sanya and Murph coffee. I nodded at them as I went in to get myself coffee, and since I'm kinda rich, I bought drinks for everyone who'd come in my car. (Well, no drink for Mouse, but I did buy him a couple of sausage-egg-and-cheese biscuits, which he wolfed down quite cheerfully.)

While we drank, Toot-Toot drew us a map of the warehouse where the murderer was hiding, drew it in the moisture that had condensed on the trunk lid of Murphy's car— it was chilly, about fifty degrees, so there was condensation enough for his drawings.

It was a pretty straightforward layout; smaller warehouse, as such things go, one of several on a lot roughly the size of a small town, and near the center of the complex, on a corner formed by two in-complex roads named 7th Street and H Street. The warehouse, fairly new, was forty yards long by twenty-five yards wide, forty feet high, and more than ninety percent of the place was open space with a raftered ceiling and no skylight. (Darn. I'd always wanted to do that whole "jump-in-through-the-skylight" super-hero shtick!) A single ten-by-ten-by-ten office sat in the corner formed by the north and west walls, right near the personnel-sized door on the north end of the place. There was another personnel-sized door at the southeast corner of the place, and two big, roll-up cargo door on both the north and south walls, each one twenty feet wide and high. According to Toot, the place was mostly empty, with the van parked out of sight of the north doors, over behind the office in the corner, and two cargo containers, which were all closed up, on that wall.

"They smelled funny, the big boxes," Toot said when he described the place. "Like that stuff humans use that they think smells like pine trees, Harry? You know, you have some in your cupboards, usually? Amber-colored, with pictures of pine trees on the bottle?"

"Pine-sol," I said, frowning. "I wonder what was in there that they had to clean them out with that?"

"I'm not sure I want to know," Dawn muttered, and a murmur of agreement ran around the group.

We talked it over for a few minutes, came up with a workable plan, and I went in and gave the clerk half of a one hundred dollar bill, torn raggedly, and promised him the other half if we came back and found all our vehicles still here, in spite of the "half hour parking for customers only" signs in front of each parking spot. I figured we'd probably be a while, what with being sane and cautious and everything.

We walked to the warehouse complex, went in past the sleeping guard on the gate, and headed in to the warehouse near the middle that held Charity's killer, moving casually, because it seemed that there were no roving watchmen here, just Sleepy on the gate.

Once we found the place, Xander and Buffy scouted the outside, found nothing odd, and we got set up to go in. Since it was just one guy, and he was a normal-if-probably-skilled guy, we went light for the actual entry; Me and Buffy in the personnel door closest to the van, Sanya and Molly at the other, with backup set at each of the cargo doors. Murphy, Carlos and Xander had worked well together… god, was it only yesterday? Felt a lot longer than that. Anyway, they were at the south cargo doors, while Lash and Dawn were at the north, near Buffy and I.

Mouse had insisted on coming along with Buffy and I, and two hundred pounds of pooch is not easy to dissuade, so he was behind Buffy, who was behind me. He had been staring intently at the door we were about to enter, so when I heard him growl, I looked back— and saw that Mouse was no longer looking towards the warehouse, but back towards the gate into the place.

Which is why I was looking when the great big honking Cadillac SUV came whipping around the corner that would lead back to the gate, the engine at idle, to avoid alerting us.

The vehicle rolled to a sudden stop maybe ten feet from Buffy and I, and I groaned as Cujo Hendricks— Cujo's not his real name, but as a nickname, it fits— leaped out of the car and started towards me, his brows knitting together as he gave me an even-more-than-usually-hate-filled glower.

"I don't have time for this," I sighed. I looked at Hendricks and said, "Not now, Cujo, I have a murderer to catch!"

John Marcone's enforcer ignored me and kept on coming. Buffy stepped in front of him, moved to push him back—

—and Hendricks dodged the shove, or deflected it, or something, something that I'm pretty sure would have gotten a grudgingly raised eyebrow of approval from Murphy, the resident expert on redirecting force.

This meant that he kept coming for me, though, and as I stepped up, thinking to stare him down, he smacked my staff out of my hands with a contemptuous sort of flick of his wrist, a flick that left my own wrist numb, but starting to sting. When the big ape grabbed me by the lapels of my duster with his hands crossed over one another, I got a little worried. When he jerked his hands back apart and started choking me with my own lapels, I went a ways past worried.

"What did you do!" Hendricks snarled in my face. "What did you do, you son of a bitch! How did you make her leave? She'd never just quit like that, so you tell me WHAT YOU DID!"

"Marcone, call off your dog before I break him," Buffy called, and I knew that Gentleman John Marcone had gotten out of the vehicle from the way she wasn't shouting. "Now, Marcone!"

"I think I'll wait, thank you," Marcone said, his voice cold and hard. "Because, you see, if you touch me, Hendricks will kill Dresden."

"Mouse!" Buffy called, "help Harry!"

I realized then that there had been a subsonic sort of rumbling going on behind all the other noise, and that it had just stopped being subsonic. Mouse let out a growl that was a lot closer to a roar than most dogs could possibly achieve, then he snarled, there was a sound like a closing bear trap— and I could breathe again, as Hendricks let go of me with a startled cry of pain, and both of his hands went to his left thigh, which was missing a substantial chunk of meat.

Mouse spat out the chunk of meat he'd torn from Hendricks's leg, and simply stared at the man, crouched just a bit, ready to spring if Hendricks made another move.

I was a little busy getting my breath back, so I didn't realize what happened next until Buffy said, in a voice as cold and deadly as I'd ever heard her use, "If you pull that trigger, I'll kill you myself, Marcone."

I looked up to see Marcone standing next to the SUV, a very large pistol pointed at my head.

"He will still be dead, Miss Summers," Marcone said calmly, not even putting any emphasis on "Summers," though he'd been introduced to her as "Elizabeth Sinclair." Of course, that might have had to do with the fact that she had the Scythe with her, just in case Charity's killer had some sort of supernatural backup. "Put down your weapon, please. I expect you can throw it with accuracy enough to be a threat."

"Crap," Buffy said, very softly. "Harry?"

"Do it," I rasped. "Safer."

I heard the scrape of metal on asphalt and knew that Buffy had put down the Scythe. I wasn't looking at her, I didn't want to take my eyes off of Marcone, who had a look on his face that I'd never seen before; it was mostly strain, but there was a definite trace of fear there, as well.

"What's Hendricks babbling about, Marcone?" I asked, my voice rough from the choking I'd received, short though it had been. "What's going on?"

"This morning, shortly after nine," Marcone said, his voice cold and angry, "Miss Gard came to my office, gave me a check for the amount of money I had only recently paid for another year of her services and those of several bodyguards and troubleshooters, plus a second check, quite substantial, as a penalty for the breaking of a contract.

"She then put a sack full of gold coins on my desk, told me that Monoc Security would no longer do business with me or any of my companies, that the refund and penalty checks were for 'breakage of mundane contracts,' and the gold 'a weregild for the breaking of contract according to the Unseelie Accords,' and she left, Dresden, refused to speak another word, and just… left. With her went several bodyguards who also worked for Monoc Security. In addition, with their departure, I lost _every bit of magical protection and defense that I had._

"Now, like Mr. Hendricks, I want to know— what did you do!"

Marcone's voice finally started to register anger— or maybe fear? Probably both, once I thought about it. Anyway, some powerful emotion made his voice louder and more ragged with those last four words.

Okay, that explained Cujo's fury— the big idiot had a serious thing for Sigrun Gard, so he was probably taking this very, very personally.

Which didn't help. I had no idea what they were talking about.

"I didn't do anything," I growled. I saw Marcone's mouth open, heard Hendricks actually _growl,_ and raised a hand to forestall them. "I swear to you, by my power as a wizard, that I have no idea what caused Ms. Gard and Monoc Security to abandon you, Marcone."

Marcone only stared at me for a moment, the gun still trained on me, his eyes on my face. But we'd Soulgazed a long time ago, he and I, and he knew my measure. He knew I was telling the truth.

"That being the case," Marcone said, pocketing the gun and moving over to Hendricks, presumably to help the man back to the SUV, "I want to hire you to find out why."

"No," I said calmly. "I have too much on my plate right now, Marcone, and I frankly don't care why they broke their contract with you."

"I'm not asking, Dresden," Marcone said, his voice icy. "I've taken a lot of grief from you over the years, I've helped you when no one else could, and now you are going to help me put this right!"

I opened my mouth to tell him to piss off, but Lash spoke before I could.

"He can't help you, Mr. Marcone," the former fallen angel said, her voice calm and cool. "No one can. You see, Donar Vadderung broke his contract with you, and agreed never to work for you again, as payment to me for services rendered."

That left all of us at that end of the building staring at Lash, even Mouse.

"Why?" Marcone growled.

"Because you are a dangerous man," Lash said calmly. "Not in the way you think, and _certainly_ not in the way that you want, but dangerous, nonetheless. I wished to insure that you were no danger to Harry or his friends, and the best way to do that was to remove from you your supernatural aides."

"What gives you the right, you—" Marcone growled, his hand starting back out of his coat pocket, the outline of the gun plain against the fabric of the jacket.

Lash raised the index finger of her right hand, twirled it once, whispered a word— and Marcone froze in place, as did Hendricks, still leaning on him. Neither moved, not even blinked, while Lash spoke.

"What gives me the right, Mr. Marcone, is knowledge," Lash said, her voice as cold as— well, as cold as that of Mab, queen of the Winter Faeries. "I know you. I've known men like you down the millennia, Mr. Marcone, and you never change. You never _learn_.

"You convince yourself that you are a necessary evil, that you contain greater evils, that you do this for reasons that, while they may not be noble, certainly justify the horrors you perpetrate on your fellow man. You tell yourself that the power you take unto yourself, the ability to order life or death, the ability to stand up to those more powerful than you by trickery or bribery— and what is hiring a security company, Mr. Marcone, but bribery by another name?— that all of this is simply necessary for you to make the world less awful than it might be.

"You lie. You lie to yourself, to those around you, you lie to everyone you meet.

"It's not about being the lesser evil, about being the one who makes the hell around you a little less hot, a little less filthy.

"It's about _power_. Your own personal power. It's never about anything else, no matter how much you may tell yourself otherwise, and you can't tell me otherwise, because I am older than you can imagine, and I've dealt with you a thousand times and more down the centuries, with men so like you that they might as well have been you, or you a reincarnation of them.

"Harry thinks he understands you, because of the Soulgaze you shared. I _do_ understand you, I understand exactly how dangerous you think you are— and how dangerous you _were_. You were dangerous enough to be a small threat to Harry, not because of your power, but because of his ability to see the good in you, that tiny spark of decency. He would forget, eventually, that that spark of humanity is only a spark… a spark in the hellish inferno that is your lust for personal power, John Marcone.

"I understood that threat— and I have cancelled it. I have cancelled _you,_ John Marcone. You will never be able to be a threat to Harry now, because you are going to have to fight to maintain your very existence, once the powers among those signatories to the Unseelie Accords who hate you, who think you a presumptuous little mortal with delusions of adequacy, realize that your supernatural protections are gone.

"You are neutralized— no. No, you are _neutered,_ John Marcone. You are no threat, and never will be again.

"Now get out of here. We have work to do."

Lash snapped her fingers, and Marcone and Hendricks both staggered and began drawing in great, whooping breaths of air. Marcone took his hand out of his pocket without a gun in it, and he guided Hendricks to the passenger side of the SUV, got him in the vehicle, then came back around to the driver's side and started to clamber in. He didn't look at any of us, kept his eyes on the ground. Just before he closed the door and started the car, Lash spoke again.

"To prove how very well I know you, John Marcone," Lash said, her voice still calm and cool, "if you try to get Harry into some sort of trouble by using the Unseelie Accords against him, know this; I am not a member of any signatory group of the Accords— I am not a member of the White Council, which I'm sure you assumed I was. You are welcome to check that for yourself. My name is Janet Lash."

Marcone's lip twitched, hard, and I knew that Lash had been right, and he'd been thinking of doing exactly that.

Marcone didn't spin the tires or try to hit anyone as he drove away. He just drove around the corner and out of sight— while everyone at that end of the building stared at Lash with various degrees of amazement and delight.

"That," Dawn said after a long moment, "was actually scary— but in a really good way.

"Remind me never to make you mad, okay?"

"Oh, I doubt that you could do anything to make me that kind of mad, Dawn," Lash said— and she blushed when she said it, and smiled a little.

I glanced sideways at Buffy, saw her trying to hide a little grin, and guessed that she'd told Lash that Dawn was attracted to her. Further, it looked like that might just go both ways, which… cool.

"Well, that's a relief," Dawn said, and mimed mopping her brow— while _she_ blushed and smiled a little.

"You know," I drawled at Lash, "I'm really not as trusting as you make me out to be. I'm too paranoid and mean to be that trusting."

"Oh, _please!"_ Lash said, rolling her eyes and holding up a hand. "Harry, I've _lived in your head_. I know exactly how trusting you want to be, and by the way, sir— you need to stop telling yourself what an absolutely horrible man you are all the time because you really, _really_ aren't, and I for one am tired of hearing you put yourself down that way! You'd think that someone would have yelled at you about this between the time I left your head and now, but it seems that I'll have to make the time for it after this is over!"

"Uh, peace!" I said, raising my hands in surrender— and now it was my turn to blush. "It's— that's been done already, okay, Lash? Really, it has. It just… I can't just let go of the habit overnight, okay?"

"Oh, who did it?" Lash asked brightly. "I'll have to thank them."

"Now, look, this is—" I started.

"Oh!" Buffy said, and looked amused. _"That_ was why Xander accused you of being dumb, and why him not believing he deserved _Amoracchius_ was dumber than he accused you of being!"

"Well, yeah, that was part—" I started, my blush darkening.

"I shall have to thank him, later," Lash said, smiling at me and chuckling a little. "For now… tell Mouse what a good dog he is, and let us get this done, Harry. Let us see to it that the man who killed Charity, who covered it with other murders, pays for his crimes."

I really couldn't argue with that.

"Okay, let's try this again," I said, and turned back to the door. I checked, and it was locked, so I broke out the lock-picks I'd bought when I re-opened the investigation firm.

I'd barely started working on the lock when Murphy's gun came around the corner, followed by her head, then the rest of her.

"Harry, I just saw Marcone go by the other end of this place," Murphy said, her eyes roving around, checking all of us out, then fixing on the chunk of Hendricks that Mouse had taken out of the big man. "Uh. I take it he stopped here— and Mouse took care of things?"

"Yes to both," Buffy said, leaving me to concentrate on the lock, which was a very, very good one. "Well— Mouse took care of Marcone's bodyguard, Hendricks. It was Lash who took care of Marcone— and I really, really wish I'd had a tape recorder, so you could hear it, Karrin. It was _beautifully_ brutal."

"I wish I'd heard it, then," Karrin said, and I heard her pad closer. "As for you, Mouse— good job. I've wanted to tear a chunk out of Hendricks myself a time or two. When we get you home, I'll give you a beer— just to get the taste out of your mouth."

Mouse chuffed agreement, and I heard his tail fanning the ground. "Okay, you can give him a beer, Murph— but that means he sleeps in the kitchen tonight. His beer farts could kill most _demons_."

Murph chuckled, then asked, "How long on that lock, Harry? Molly got the one on the other end open already."

"Molly cheats," I grumbled. "Lock-pick guns are cheating— and she won't even tell me where she got it!

"Another minute or so— this is a good lock, but I'm a wizard, you know."

"So I've heard," Murphy said drily, and I heard her walk away, presumably back to the other side of the warehouse.

Less than the promised minute later, I got the last tumbler into place, turned the lock— and opened the door just a crack, so that I could safely remove my picks and put them away. Once that was done, I took a deep breath, looked at Buffy to be sure she was ready— she was, big surprise— and opened the door just wide enough to slip in.

The place was dim, but not dark. Every fourth fluorescent light up near the ceiling was on, which gave enough light to show the office to my right, the nose of a black van poking out past the southernmost wall of that office, and two steel cargo containers along the right wall about in the middle of that long expanse. I smelled dust, car exhaust, the faintest hint of Kentucky Fried Chicken, and, over all of these, the heavy, pine-tinged chemical odor of Pine-Sol.

I simply stood and waited for a few seconds, and when the door diagonally opposite the one Buffy, Mouse and I stood near opened, Molly saw us standing there and eased inside herself, Sanya right behind her, moving with a silence that always came as a surprise from such a big man.

Once they'd come inside, I started for the half-glass wall of the office, only a few feet off, and I looked inside. A desk sat against the wall I was looking through, with a single lamp, one of those that is mounted on an arm with multiple joints and can be aimed anywhere, sat on the desk, as well as a closed laptop computer. In the back corner was a walled off section that I figured for a bathroom, and a couple of steps to one side let me look into it— there was a light on— and see that I was right. Toilet, sink, even a small shower stall. On the back wall of the office, three filing cabinets, nothing else. But over on the north wall, to the side of the desk, was a large trunk, a modern-looking thing of plastic, but the clasps were steel, and there was a steel reinforced hasp for a lock— I figured it was probably plastic over steel, or why bother with the steel at all.

The thing looked sort of streamlined, very modern… and something about it said that it held dangerous things, things meant to hurt and kill. Being a wizard, I listened to that feeling, and made a note to keep the guy from getting into the office.

Molly and Sanya were approaching slowly, and as they got close to the first of the cargo containers, Molly suddenly stopped, turned to face the big steel boxes, and took a deep breath through her nose.

Even as she did this, Sanya physically picked Molly up and started moving away from the containers— and Mouse, who had been content to walk along beside Buffy and behind me, suddenly leapt in front of me, stood in a crouch between me and the nearer container, his legs splayed out in a fashion that said he was expecting something to try to get past him— and he _snarled_.

"Brimstone!" Molly snapped as Sanya moved back towards the door out of this place. "The containers smell like brimstone, Harry!"

The nearer container's doors burst open, and out leapt two… things that I suppose were vaguely dog shaped, but only vaguely. They weren't the Faerie hellhounds I was familiar with, or the usual beasts that Nicodemus used for guard dogs— they looked like what most people probably think of when they hear the word "hellhound." They were about the size of Shetland ponies, seemed built on the lines of some sort of Mastiff… and they were _on fire_.

"This," I said as two more flame-dogs burst out of the other container, "is going to suck."


	28. Chapter 28

Since the four fiery, Shetland-pony sized, vaguely canine monsters that leapt out of the two cargo containers weren't much like the Faerie hounds that I had always called hellhounds, I immediately named them "helldogs," and started trying to think of ways to take them.

"Not gonna be easy," I muttered. "They won't mind fire very much."

One of the helldogs leapt at the group that consisted of Mouse, me and Buffy (from front to back), and my dog leapt to meet it, his war-bark (which sounded a lot like a lion's roar) tearing from his massive chest even as a pale blue glow spread out from his chest to surround his entire body.

I'd seen that before, and still didn't know what it was. When Mouse had attacked the Ik'k'uox, a giant demon-monster thing controlled by a pair of Red Court vampires sent to kill me and prevent me from rescuing my daughter, he'd glowed like that. Come to think of it, Esmerelda Batiste, the female of the two vampires, had called Mouse a "Mountain Ice Demon from the Land of Dreams." Hmm. I'd forgotten that….

Mouse, whatever you called him, was not letting a helldog get at me or Buffy.

My dog met the helldog in mid-leap, and they both crashed to the concrete floor of the warehouse, though Mouse somehow managed to land on top, despite being the smaller dog. (Wow. Never thought I'd be saying that about Mouse!)

If Mouse noticed the helldog's flames, he gave no sign— his fur didn't burn, he didn't yelp in pain, nothing. The helldog, on the other hand, seemed more than a little bugged by the blue aura around my dog, yelping and trying to get away from Mouse.

I had to look away, then, as a second helldog leapt at Buffy and me, huge fangs dripping flames that seemed to set the concrete floor on fire, massive front paws aiming to knock me down so it could, presumably, land on me and set my whole body to burning.

I leveled my staff at the thing and snapped, "Forzaré!" My bolt of force caught it square in the chest, sent it flying back into the nearest of the cargo containers hard enough to dent the steel wall of the thing.

Of course, it bounced right to its feet, completely unharmed, and started at us again.

"Crap," I observed.

"My turn!" Buffy said, and nudged me aside, stepped up in front of me, the Scythe in a two-handed grip, a grin on her face. "Here, Fido!"

The hound leapt again, and Buffy moved sideways, cat-quick (which, appropriate, if you think about it). As the helldog passed through the place where she'd been, I saw the Scythe flash out in a blur of red and silver, and the helldog made a noise somewhere between a yelp and a roar as most of its right front paw hit the floor, cut off neatly by the slayer's weapon.

Then it spun around, and its tail slammed across Buffy's stomach, knocked her some thirty feet across the warehouse in a tumble. I saw her starting to get to her feet, so didn't worry a whole lot— but that still left me with a face full of pissed off (if injured) giant, fiery dog.

Okay, force hadn't worked. Wind would be a _terrible_ idea— which left taking advantage of a side effect of my favorite magic.

Back when I'd been working the case that led to Molly being my apprentice, I'd been being chased by a Fetch, a Faerie creature that fed on fear, and it had been so old and powerful that I'd barely been able to get it to notice me with my most powerful spells— and it had been chasing me, my half-brother Thomas and Rawlins (that was the case where I met and befriended the cop) as we fled it in a rented mini-van. The thing was so big, its legs so long, that it was gaining on us when I worked out my little cheat. I'd tossed a couple of cases of bottled water out of the van, popped the bottles open with a small flame blast— then shot the biggest, most powerful column of fire I could make straight up into the air. But instead of fueling the fire solely with my magic, I'd sucked heat out of the environment, and frozen the water on the street. Big, ancient Fetch hit ice at dead run, fall down, go boom. We got away.

I was gonna try that again— with the helldog for my heat source.

I didn't have a lot of time for preparation, but the reason I'm a Warden is that I'm good at the quick and dirty magic— hell, it's almost instinctive for me. I dropped my staff, letting it fall across one foot, then raised my blasting rod to the ceiling, extended my left hand towards the helldog, fingers spread to give me more area for sucking in energy, and virtually _roared,_ _"FUEGO!"_

Energy poured into my body through my left hand, and I shunted it, as quickly as possible, out through the blasting rod in my right hand, because it _hurt._ This wasn't simple background heat that I was trying to soak up, this was the enchanted fire of some sort of powerful guardian creature. Given that it was Nicky and the Nickelheads behind this, I might well be trying to channel actual hellfire— but that was okay, thanks to the days of Lasciel trying to tempt me with power, I had some experience with that particular power source.

Fire blasted its way out of my blasting rod, a column of brilliant yellow-white as thick as my thigh. It tore through the warehouse's roof like the metal was tissue paper— no, like it was _flash paper_— didn't even leave drops of molten metal behind.

Holy crap. _**I**_ did that?

"Don't know my own strength!" I muttered in my best Bullwinkle J. Moose impersonation.

The blast kept going for most of twenty seconds, and I held onto my control of the power I was channeling through sheer, stubborn unwillingness to lose it in front of my friends. (Yeah. I'm a guy. Deal with it.)

Finally, there was no more heat to channel, and I let my arms drop, then bent over and placed my hands on my knees while I looked at the remains of the helldog and panted for breath.

There was nothing where the helldog had been but a mass of frost-rimed rock in the vague shape of a big damned dog. Ribbons of frosty air rose from the thing, and I heard Buffy say, her voice soft and impressed, "Whoa. Harry… that was pretty awesome!"

She had moved next to me, and I forced myself to straighten and look around, since she was right there. (Manly. That's me.)

Mouse was sitting and panting cheerfully next to a pile of stone shaped a lot like the one nearer me— but missing most of its throat. Whoa. Manly! (Dogly?)

Over on the other half of the warehouse, Molly had vanished— veiled herself, good god, she was incredible with a veil— and Sanya had apparently beheaded one of the two helldogs with _Esperacchius_. The other was pacing around Sanya, moving with care and respect as he circled with it, each eying the other and looking for an opening.

I started to move that way— violent magic wasn't Molly's big strength, and though she'd worked out ways around that, nothing I'd seen her do yet would be of a lot of help against the helldog, and Sanya might get hurt dealing with it.

Buffy put a hand on my arm, grinned up at me and said simply, "Wait for it, Harry," and pointed at something over by the personnel door that Molly and Sanya had entered through, some sort of cabinet, now hanging open.

"I can't see what's—" I started— and suddenly, Molly appeared out of thin air off to one side of the helldog and slightly behind it. She had something large in her hands, but I couldn't see it around her body and the gray warden's cloak that she wore.

Then there came a huge, thick stream of semi-solid white fog from in front of Molly, and I got it— and I laughed aloud. The open cabinet near the door? It had held a fire extinguisher!

The helldog screamed, spun towards Molly— and got a face full of chemical foam that put its head out completely. A second later, Esperacchius took its head off completely— and the helldog died, its fires going out almost instantly.

"Nice one, Jedi Carpenter!" I called across the warehouse.

Molly turned to grin at me— and her eyes went wide, even as Buffy snorted derisively, said, "You need to invest in some sneakers— you can't sneak up on me in combat boots, stupid," and stepped back away from me. I heard a man exhale sharply, then a flurry of blows, all before I could even get spun around to see what the hell was going on.

Buffy was standing in front of a red-haired man who stood a couple of inches over six feet tall, was built like one of those weightlifter types who aren't willing to sacrifice speed for more bulk, and had one of those collapsible metal police batons in his left hand, was swinging it at her with impressive speed…

…Which probably made the fact that she was blocking every strike with the much heavier (and should, in the guy's eyes, have been much harder to move so quickly) Scythe, _and looking bored while she did so_ really, really infuriating.

Of course, I felt like an idiot— this was almost certainly the guy we'd come here for, and I'd gotten so wrapped up in the helldogs that I'd completely forgotten him. Based on the look on Molly's face before Buffy stepped back to intercept him, he'd been about to clobber me from behind. I _deserved_ to feel like an idiot.

Buffy got tired of playing with him, tossed the Scythe to me (I caught it easily enough, and did not let myself get distracted by the _insanely powerful_ and _totally unfamiliar_ magic that I felt coursing through it), and started simply dodging her attacker's blows with minimal movement. I could see the guy getting tired, see him getting frustrated, too— and he started adding in hand and foot attacks.

He was pretty smart. His kicks weren't the kind you see in martial arts movies, or in tournaments. Nothing high, no spinning kicks— just short, vicious kicks, none aimed higher than the knee, all thrown in hopes of injuring Buffy's legs and slowing her down.

Fat chance.

After most of a minute of this, Buffy simply did this simple little block where she brought the back of her hand up into the incoming wrist of the killer. This left her hand inside the arc of his hands, so he really couldn't do much about it when she slapped him so hard that it sent him staggering sideways, barely on his feet, even more barely avoiding spinning around as he went.

"Bitch!" the man snarled— and his hand dipped behind his back, came out with a very large pistol. I recognized the pistol, as Carlos carries a fifty caliber Desert Eagle himself.

Buffy was already moving in this odd, back-and-forth-dart-ahead-step-back movement that made it really hard to track her, especially since she was moving at slayer-speeds.

That gave me plenty of time to get pissy. Pointing a gun at my lady? Bad idea.

My staff was still lying on the ground, two feet or so of the top laying across my instep (I had the toe of my boot lifted to keep it from rolling off). I dropped the Scythe, snapped my foot up, caught my staff, leveled it at Mr. Assassin's hand— I was only about fifteen feet away, an easy shot— and snapped, "Forzaré!"

The gun didn't even go off when my force bolt hit the jerk's hand— when the bolt, about the size of the end of my staff, hit the back of his hand, the shock to the tendons there made his hand spasm open, and the gun flew sideways even as its owner grabbed his left hand in his right and yelled in pain.

Good.

Rather than take the chance that the man might have more weapons concealed about his person and might draw one, Buffy simply darted in and one-punched Mr. Assassin into unconsciousness.

"Thanks, Harry," Buffy said, even as she bent over and started searching the guy for weapons. "Guess I shouldn't play cat-and-mouse with the professional assassin next time."

"Probably not," I agreed, though reluctantly. "I mean, it's fun to watch, but the risk? Not worth the fun."

"I shall take your assessment of risk vs. fun as a compliment," Buffy said with a grin. "Thank you."

"You're wel—"

The personnel door that Buffy and I had come in slammed open, and Lash, who stood in the doorway, cried out some that sounded like _"Shathay!"_ as she gestured with her right hand.

Invisible force slammed across my ankles, and apparently across those of Buffy, Sanya, Molly and even Mouse as well, and we all fell to the floor very suddenly.

Before I could even squawk in pain, there was a sound like a loud gunshot from somewhere over by the van, and a very wide plane of red-and-orange tinted force— wide horizontally, but barely even there vertically, so deadly sharp— tore through the air at what would have been waist height on me. It moved at a speed that was less than that of sound, but I don't think by much— and when it hit the wall opposite from where the van was parked, it passed through it like the steel was cheap tissue paper. For just a split second after the ray of force passed through the steel, I saw daylight leaking through in a very, very thin line. Then the building settled that… what, that thirty-second of an inch? Sixty-fourth? And the light disappeared.

Either way, if Lash hadn't somehow sensed it coming and knocked us down, the five of us would have died— Mouse's head reaches above my belt when he sits, so it would have gotten him, too.

"_Irimal!"_ Lash snarled, and I glanced up in time to see her sweep the shinai she used as a magical focus across the room. I felt the magic pouring from the focus, from Lash, but didn't see anything— until, suddenly, the outline of a man appeared in front of the assassin's van, limned in bright white light.

With a snarl, the man-outline waved a hand, and suddenly I found myself staring at a man of around my brother Thomas's height, just a shade under six feet. He was lean, with the build of a runner, and wiry, like he had some strength in that lean frame. His face was lean, but not too lean, he didn't look like a rat or anything. His hair, a medium blond, was cut very short, and he wore black jeans and a gray polo shirt.

"I don't know how you did that, you little ape, but you'll pay for it!" he snarled at Lash.

Lash didn't answer with words. Instead, she thrust the shinai back over her shoulder, where she'd apparently rigged a sheath of some kind for it, then grasped the wooden hilt of _Fidelacchius,_ and drew the holy sword in one smooth motion.

_Fidelacchius_ exploded into white light, and the man snarled a mix of hate and fear. He started to move for the far wall, away from Lash— but the personnel door there opened, and Xander and Murphy stepped in, Xander with _Amoracchius_ burning white in his hand.

The man turned towards the far wall, the one he'd cut through with his spell, and Sanya bounced to his feet even as _Esperacchius_ burst out in its own white glow in answer to that of its brother swords, and the threat presented by the man, who was almost certainly—

"Give up your coin, sir," Lash said quietly, her voice filled with quiet strength. "Let Thalariel go, give up the power he grants you— and turn back to the light."

"Shut up, woman!" the Denarian snarled, even as a second pair of eyes, Thalariel's eyes, glowing green, opened in his forehead. "What do you know of it? Of the power Thalariel gives me?"

"More than you would believe," Lash said, stepping towards the man. "How else do you think I detected you, despite the veil Thalariel taught you? How else do you think I knew of Thalariel's fondness for that 'linear detonation' spell you used, and how to counter it?"

The man's mouth opened, but the voice that came out next wasn't his, it was Thalariel's. Musical, neither male nor female, beautiful and flowing, it couldn't have come from a human being.

"And how do you know so much of me and the things I love best, little knight?" Thalariel asked. "I have never seen you before, I am sure."

"I know you well, Thalariel," Lash said, moving another step in the Denarian's direction. "And well I should… for once, we were both of the hosts of heaven, my brother."

That actually made the Denarian's demonic eyes widen, and the man freeze in place.

"That," the Denarian said in it's angelic voice, "is not possible. He cannot send angels against us, he must use humans!"

"I am human," Lash said— and her voice filled with pride and delight as she said the words. "I am as human as Harry Dresden, who taught me to _be_ human, who gave me a name, who showed me that I did not have to give up my existence to she who cast the shadow I was.

"I am no longer Lasciel— I am_ Lash,_ so named by Harry Dresden. Willingly did I lay down my life for his, and joyfully did I follow when he showed me the path back to life.

"Now… our Father has accepted me back into the fold, offered me a chance to protect and defend the rest of the human race. I have accepted this sword, this blade of Faith, for both the responsibility and the joy that it is.

"I am come _home_ again, Thalariel— and I will do all in my power to release that man you have tricked and betrayed."

Thalariel stared for a long moment— then the demonic voice spoke again, very softly.

"Lasciel," it said in a voice so soft that I almost missed the hatred and contempt that pulsed through it, "will kill you more slowly than any human has ever died for this disgusting— for this INSULT!"

"She may try," Lash said, her voice soft— but strong. "Now, Thalariel— will you let your host make his own decision, or—"

Thalariel's human host started to change, and it happened so rapidly that it was scarier than it would have been just for what he changed _into_.

The guy bulked up, like the Hulk does in the cartoons and movies, growing taller at the same time as he added muscle mass from seemingly nowhere. His whole body became thick with muscle, and his clothes just sort of vanished under the extra flesh.

The Denarian fell forward, like he was going to land on hands and knees, but his arms lengthened so that he was on hands and feet. His torso had stretched as well, lengthened an insane amount, but it happened so fast that I couldn't tell until he fell forward and I saw the distance between his hands and feet.

Something changed in his head, arms and legs, and it looked as though they had changed to something like a bear's head and paws, just without the fur. Then… then more legs and paws, all like those of a shaved bear, started erupting from his sides, and suddenly, I realized that he was almost twenty-five feet long from head to— oh, crap, he'd grown a tail something like that of a scorpion, only longer and more mobile!

The thing's skin turned a dark and shiny brown on the back and sides, and I realized that it had grown chitin, like a cricket, or maybe a cockroach. The underside, from the brief look I got before the now-eighteen-legged creature's legs all bent, lowering it closer to the ground, looked soft and gelid, glistened with the slime that now extruded to cover the entire creature.

"That's just grotesque, Thalariel," Lash said calmly— even as I was trying not to yark all over the place at the sight of the bear-roach-centipede thing with a scorpion's tail, all covered in slug-slime.

"DIE, TRAITOR!" the fallen angel screamed, its voice now barely understandable, thanks to the chitin-covered bear's jaws.

For something so huge, that thing could move— maybe that shouldn't have been a surprise, what with the insane number of legs and all, but something that size and so heavily built just shouldn't be quick, too.

The Denarian had been facing Lash, who was off to my right, and now it spun towards Buffy and I, and charged right at us.

Even though we hadn't actually worked together a lot, we pulled off a team effort that made us both look good. I'd seen that thing's underbelly, knew it wasn't armored with chitin down there, and could only imagine the sheer havoc that Buffy could wreak down there with the Scythe. She dove for her weapon, laying where I'd dropped it when I picked up my staff, and the Denarian veered towards her immediately.

"Buffy, jelly belly!"

She got it, and dropped flat on her back as the Denarian monster charged at her.

I leveled my staff, poured out force laced with Soulfire, not intending to hit or destroy anything, but to construct something— which is what Soulfire is meant for, creating things. I envisioned what I needed to make in order to justify the faith Buffy had shown in me, found something at least approximating the right Latin for it, and said, quite calmly, _"Fossa defendere,"_ as I poured magic and the energies of creation out through my staff.

A ramp of force, wide enough to ensure that that Denarian's huge, powerful legs all went up it, built up between the creature and Buffy's feet, raised to a height that would allow a clearance of six inches from the highest part of her body. I extended it at the speed of thought, made sure it was strong and level as I ran it neatly around the slayer, then partially closed it over her, leaving a slit about four inches wide from about her waist to the top of her head. Just past her head, I angled the construct down to floor level again.

The huge, bear-slug-roach-centipede monster ran up the ramp at full speed, since it had been intending to trample Buffy, and went right on over her— as she thrust the blade of the Scythe up into its soft, slug-like underbelly.

The thing hit the other end of the ramp even as her voice rose from the recess I'd left in the construct for her, crying, "Oh, GAG! I need a shower, STAT!"

The Denarian spun around, maybe intending to run back over, or try to tear my construct open— and instead, it scream-roared in pain as several of its own feet landed on the guts that were spilling out from where Buffy had cut it open, a cut that, from the look of things, ran most of the length of the thing.

I opened the construct so that Buffy could climb out, then left it there— it would fade in a few minutes, and in the meantime, it might prove useful, you never know.

Buffy bounced to her feet, wiping at her eyes with one hand as the other held the Scythe out towards the Denarian in a generally defensive manner. She was covered in a mixture of blood and other fluids, and I understood her need for a shower— the smells weren't any more pleasant than you'd expect, either.

Sanya, Xander and Lash were moving to surround Thalariel, and I could hear Lash exhorting the fallen angel's human host to return to human and give up the coin even as I started over towards Buffy, meaning to pull her off the floor— she'd done her part, I was going to get her to the office and the little bathroom there, and its little shower. I figured showering with her clothes on would appeal to her about then, and I had confidence in the Knights— we'd given them an edge, and even though Xander and Lash weren't terribly experienced, they should be able to handle it.

From somewhere behind me, someone screamed my name, and I spun— just in time to see the Denarian beast-form charging at me, stomping all over its own guts and not caring, just charging at me with murderous intent.

I dived sideways, managed to get out of its way, and was congratulating myself as I rolled over to watch it pass. My duster, not tied shut, fell open as I rolled—

—just in time for the thing's scorpion-like stinger to stab down and cut into my right side, penetrating muscle and making me scream in pain— which quickly became agony, as whatever poison the tail was equipped with got into my blood and, by the feel of it, set it on _fire_.

I was still screaming when I blacked out, but over my own screams, I heard Buffy shout my name— and I think I might have managed a smile even as I lost consciousness.

She had a long history of messing up things that hurt people she loved, so at least I'd be avenged— because I sure _felt_ like I was dying.

Next thing I knew, somebody slapped me really hard, and I heard a jumble of voices around me.

"Harry! Damn you, stay awake!" That was Xander, and I thought he'd slapped me. I opened my mouth to call him an asshole, and vomited.

Blackness again.

Molly's voice. "—needs Injun Joe, I can't do anything with this—"

Lash. "—can hold it off, but it's not a cure, only a palliative—"

Sanya. "We need to stop the poison, and I can see it in the wound still—"

Dawn, sounding angry. "Move!" Hands on me. "Harry, I'm sorry— this is going to hurt like hell, but—" Then it hurt like a dozen hells, and I howled my agony at the top of my lungs, and blacked out again.

"—sus Christ, Dawn!" Xander's voice, amazed and impressed. "Where'd you learn that?"

"A book. A fantasy novel, believe it or not." Someone pressed something to my lips. "Harry, drink."

Water, and it was better than Coke, right that moment. I swallowed until I messed that up, then coughed— and passed out from the pain _that_ caused.

That seemed to be it, for a while. I dreamed, only the dreams were more like nightmares.

I woke up in a familiar place, and even though I felt mostly like shit, I couldn't help but laugh at my familiar surroundings. Then I remembered recent events, and the laugh stopped cold.

I was in Charity's old sewing room, where I'd recuperated or just slept more than a couple of times. The last time had been after Michael's forced retirement, and had shown me a good bit about how happy Charity was to have her husband free of obligations other than his family.

And now she was gone.

"You awake?" said a voice, so softly that if I hadn't been, there was no chance it would have woke me.

"I'm awake, Buffy." I swallowed the urge to groan in pain, and asked, "Is everyone okay?"

"Everyone but you," she said, and I felt her hand on my cheek. "Let me get Joseph."

I captured her hand and held it against my cheek for a moment, and she turned the touch into a caress, after which I let her go and get my doctor.

I drifted back off before Joseph Listens-to-Wind came in to check on me, woke when his gentle hands disturbed the bandage over my right side, a little above my waist.

"Hoss Dresden," he said, his deep voice somewhere between amused and aggrieved, "you get hurt more than any three wardens I can think of, now that Warden Morgan has left this world."

I thought about that for a second. "You know, Wizard Listens-to-Wind, I'm going to have to take that as a compliment— against my will, almost, but yeah. That's a compliment."

A warm chuckle sounded from above, and the hands started changing the bandages. "You can call me Joseph, Hoss Dresden— maybe in a hundred years, I'll let you address me as your grandfather does, but not just yet.

"I think I meant it as a compliment. You are crazy— but you are the kind of crazy that comes from being too brave for your own good."

"Oh, no, not brave." I drew in a sharp breath as he pulled whatever was packing the wound out, but I didn't squirm or yelp. Quite. "And you can call me Harry, or just Hoss.

"No, bravery isn't me— I tend to be scared stupid every time I go into a fight, Joseph."

"And you go anyway." One of his hands came up and squeezed my shoulder. "Bravery is not failing to be scared, Hoss. It is being scared and doing the job that needs doing anyway.

"You are a brave man— perhaps the bravest I have ever known."

I got a little choked up. I mean, I have a ton of respect for that old man, and here he was telling me I was maybe the bravest man he'd ever known?

"Except for Morgan." I gulped and managed to steady my voice. "He was brave enough to come to a man he knew had reason to hate him for help. I don't think I could've done that."

"Except for Morgan, then," Joseph agreed. He made a small noise of satisfaction as he finished bandaging me up, then came and looked me in the eyes. "Three days of bedrest, Hoss. No exceptions— that poison was the worst I've ever seen, and I've seen many. If not for the quick thinking of Watcher Sinclair, and the help I got from Lady Lash… you would not have survived."

"Yeah, I sort of remember Dawn doing… something." I shuddered at the remembered pain, then said, "Hurt like hell— but I'm alive to remember that, so I'm grateful.

"What did she do, anyway?"

Joseph shook his head in rueful amazement, then said, "She had shotgun shells from somewhere— she cut them open, poured the gunpowder in your wound, and ignited it before it soaked up any serious liquid. This burned up the poison that hadn't entered your system yet, and cauterized your wounds at the same time."

I laughed. It hurt, but I couldn't help it. When I stopped, I said, "Tell her that I read that book, too, and she can call me 'Ellegon,' if she wants— she earned the right."

"I'll tell her," he agreed. "Right now, you sleep. Three days in bed, no argument, no exceptions. Another week after that of no strenuous exercise. I've given Buffy instructions for your care, so you won't dare argue, Hoss."

"That's cheating!"

"It's effective medical care." He gave me a smile that was half-smirk. "Also, boy— you let that one get away, I'll never treat your injuries again. I don't want to preserve stupidity…."

I laughed a little, and nodded. "I hear you, Joseph. Thank you for… this and all the other times."

"No problem." He looked me in the eyes for a second and said, "Ebenezar said to tell you 'do what he damn tells you, boy— I can't come see you right now, I have to deal with the captives from Kiev, but I'll be along, and you'd better have listened to your doctor or there will be hell to pay.'

"He's likely to follow through on that, Hoss Dresden. So do as you're told."

"Yes, sir," I said, and let my head fall back. "Thanks again, Joseph."

The old wizard slipped out of the room, and Buffy came in a moment later. She knelt beside the narrow bed, kissed me gently, and said, "That was… too scary. Next time, belt your damned duster, buster!"

"Yes, ma'am," I said solemnly. Then I looked at her and asked, "What about the assassin? Where's he?"

"In jail," Buffy said, grinning. "Rawlins called Murphy a while ago, and gave her the good news. Seems somebody or something got into a big fight in this warehouse, and some anonymous citizen called it in. The cops got there and found a lot of mess— no blood at all, but a lot of mess— and this unconscious guy. His van was standing open, and they found a trunk full of weapons standing open in the van. They've got the knife that killed Charity and the other women, with the assassin's prints on it. Also a shitload of illegal weapons, including this funky, nasty fully automatic shotgun."

I thought for a moment, then got it. "Which is where Dawn got the shells for the gunpowder she used to save my life."

"Uh-huh." Buffy shook her head for a moment, then sighed. "I keep— Harry, when the hell did my little sister become this scary-smart, combat-savvy, reliable and gutsy Watcher? 'Cause I swear, she was a whiny teenager just a year or so back."

"I'm not sure, but I think it probably started when she realized that she could actually help you," I said, and watched her smile. "I don't know when it happened, Buffy, I'm just glad it did. Dawn can be on my team anytime."

"Mine, too." Buffy shook her head again. "And just saying that feels… weird. Good-weird, but… weird.

"Anyway— you gonna be awake a couple more minutes?"

"I think for a couple more, but not much longer," I said. "I could use a drink. No food, but a drink would be good."

"I'll get some water." She kissed me lightly again, smiled, and stood. "Be right back."

She was right back, but she wasn't alone— she had Maggie with her, looking wide-eyed and a little scared.

"Hey, sweetheart," I said, and held a hand out to her. "Now there's just the medicine I need."

Maggie came over, took my hand— and burst into tears. "I thought— you were so sick, Daddy, I was scared!"

I managed to hug her without hurting myself, and I held her and assured her that I was all right, or would be, and Buffy sat on the edge of the little bed and helped, stroked Maggie's hair, assured my kid that if I misbehaved, I'd be facing the wrath of the slayer, and generally acted like a big sister… or, just maybe, a mom….

That last thought was huge, powerful, a little scary, a lot happy-making— and, yes, premature. But just seeing how much Buffy loved my daughter, well…. Yeah, I thought it.

After Maggie had cried herself out, made me promise to get better, and agreed to come back and see me before bed, Buffy took her back downstairs, then came up and sat in a chair in my room. I tried to tell her she didn't have to sit watch over me, but shut up when she gave me a hard look.

So she sat, and she read the first Harry Potter book, and I watched her for a few minutes before I fell asleep. My dreams were much more pleasant, that time around. I figure that not even nightmares want to risk pissing Buffy off….

I didn't sleep long, or steadily— I kept waking up for a few minutes at a time and drifting back off slowly. Buffy helped me get to the bathroom a couple of times (thank god I was cleared for that— I wasn't ready to have my newly-minted lady holding a bedpan for me), and, when I asked her to, read aloud from wherever she was in Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone.

(She'd borrowed the book from Molly, who, being a pretty intense fangirl, had gone to the trouble of getting all of the books in the original British editions, not those changed for us dull Americans, who wouldn't read anything with "philosopher's" in the title. So the original legend of the Philosopher's Stone was intact, and we were allowed to work out for ourselves that "trainers" was what people in Great Britain called athletic shoes.)

Everything seemed calm enough. In the morning, I had visits from all my friends, one at a time. I embarrassed Dawn in a good way, telling her how brilliant she'd been with the gunpowder trick and thanking her for saving my life. Sanya assured me that he, Xander and Lash had defeated Thalariel easily enough after what Buffy and I had done to him, and that the fallen angel's coin was safely in custody. Xander apologized for slapping me, and Buffy and I razzed him for it— how dare he try to keep me alive, right? Lash just made small talk— and told me how much she liked Maggie, which made my day.

When I brought up some history, she didn't object at all.

"You know, right before you saved my life down in the Raith Deeps," I said after a while, "you told me that you knew things about my mother, my birth, her death… and then you went and died for me.

"Then when I saw you in the afterlife… well, there were bigger things on my mind.

"But now… Lash, can you tell me now?"

"Not today," Lash said after a moment's thought. She shook her head sadly. "Harry, it's going to upset you, some of it. I don't want to do that until at least after the poison's effects have left your system. So after Wizard Listens-to-Wind's three days are up? I'll tell you."

I took a deep breath, and made myself see her point. "All right. Thank you, Lash.

"But do you think I'm well enough to know how you got here, what you've been doing?"

"That I can tell you." She grinned and looked about thirteen for a minute. "It's not a big story— but telling you will be a pleasure."

Buffy stood, stretched, and said, "Why don't I go get some lunch. Back in about an hour or—"

"Stay, please." Lash looked at Buffy and smiled shyly. "I want you to hear it. Harry is my best friend, and you and he love each other. I want you to be my friend, too— and I have nothing to hide from you."

"Okay, so I'll get us all something to drink." Buffy grinned at Lash and added, "We already are friends, Lash. So thanks."

Lash's smile widened a little, and she nodded. We sat silently until Buffy returned with two Cokes and a Diet coke, then settled in, and Lash told us how she'd gotten back.

"It really was simple, for me. Simpler than it was for Harry, I'm sure." Lash took a drink and looked thoughtful. "Harry had to fight his way back, had to get past a great many things in the afterlife that he'd sent there, that wanted him dead. If not for the strength of soul given him by his brief time with Maggie before he died…. Well, never mind. He succeeded, and that earned him the reconstruction of his body.

"But I had never had a body, not the me that is here. I wasn't even able to claim having had the body of Lasciel, since I was and am no longer she. So I had to go about returning to life— or perhaps _coming to life_ is more appropriate— more carefully. First, I had to find a body with no soul, and those are… even with your advanced medicine, those are more common than you think. Then, on top of that, to be able to help Harry, it needed to be the body of a wizard, or one who could have been a wizard…."

Lash talked for a long time, told us of her return, and of how she'd bargained with Donar Vadderung to take away Marcone's magical backup— and she told us, when I asked, of what she'd bargained with.

"In exchange for his agreeing to cancel his contracts with Marcone, and never work for the man again," Lash said with a smug little smile, "I told him something that I knew only because of the memories I had from Lasciel.

"I told him where his son Loki is, and how he's been hiding from his father so effectively for so long. For that, I think Mr. Vadderung would have given me more— but I didn't need more from him."

I looked at Lash with new respect. "That took guts— and some damned good thinking. Thanks, Lash."

She accepted my thanks with a little blush, and went on.

After she'd finished, I fell back asleep for a while.

When I woke up, things had gone to hell again.

Someone had tried to kidnap all of the Carpenter kids as they came out of their schools— and they'd been partially successful.


	29. Chapter 29

Chapter 29

I woke up in the afternoon to the sound of people rushing around downstairs, and someone— a girl— crying hysterically.

Buffy wasn't in the room with me— no one was, for the first time since I'd been injured at the warehouse. That worried me, and I sat up, swung my legs over the side of the bed— and Sanya came charging into my room, eyes filled with a mixture of anger and concern.

He saw me sitting up, and said, "Good, you are awake. Can you get downstairs if I help you? You— your expertise is needed, Harry. Molly is not here, nor Carlos— they are at the White Council headquarters, checking on some things. Lash… she could help, but Amanda knows you best, and she is terrified."

"Let's go. Fast. Tell me what's happened."

Sanya got me up, my arm across his shoulders, and practically carried me down to the living room— but he didn't tell me what had happened.

We got to the living room to find it full of people, Michael, his mother, a bunch of kids, Buffy, Dawn, Xander and Lash. All were gathered around Amanda Carpenter, a freshman in high school, now, and little Harry, who was in the sixth grade, both of whom were crying, though Harry was beginning to taper off under the attention of his sister Alicia, the oldest girl home at the time, with Molly off in Edinburgh.

Amanda, almost fifteen, pretty, and already showing signs of being built like Molly and her mother, was sobbing on her father, and trying hard to gather herself.

Something wasn't right— there weren't enough kids here, not enough at all. I did a head count, and my guts turned to thermite-laced ice as I realized who was missing.

"Where are Maggie and Hope?" I asked, my voice much louder and more scared than I'd meant it to be.

"They were taken," Michael said grimly. "Harry, someone tried to get all the children— but Amanda…. Amanda fought off those who came for her, Alicia and Daniel, and—Maggie and Hope were taken. Young Harry wasn't only because he was talking to his teacher about an assignment, and wasn't outside yet."

"Maggie—!" I stopped myself, but only by literally biting my lip. My daughter, in danger again. Kidnapped again— and again, while this might have been aimed at Michael and his family, it felt like it was because of me. "Sanya, I need to sit, please."

Buffy got under my other arm and took over for Sanya, led me to a chair and helped me collapse into it slowly enough that I didn't do myself any damage.

I closed my eyes, composed myself as much as I could— it helped that Buffy sat on the arm of my chair and held my hand— and said, "Amanda. How did you fight off the ones who came for you and your brother and sister?"

"I…." Amanda swallowed, fought tears for a moment, and shook her head violently. "I think— Uncle Harry, I think it was magic!"

Crap. I'd been kind of afraid of this, as strong as Molly was, afraid of it popping up in another of her siblings— and of Michael having questions. The reason for that fear was, in part, gone now— but I still didn't really want to discuss why his kids kept manifesting magic with him, didn't want to let him know that his wife had been keeping secrets from him.

I took a long, slow, deep breath, closed my eyes— and opened them with my Wizard's Sight active. I looked at Amanda Carpenter, almost fifteen, still just a little gawky, but well on her way to being a heartbreaker, and I saw that she was right. She had power, had magic. While it's not easy to judge power levels through the Sight, I was pretty sure she was going to be White Council material, was going to be strong, magically.

"What did you do, Princess?" I asked after I banished my Sight, and I got a watery smile for calling her that. When I'd first met her after she was old enough to be walking around, she'd informed me that she was a princess, and I'd used the title a few times over the years— it always got a smile out of her.

"I— they came up the walk as we were going to Grandma in the van, four of them, and… one… the one in front, he had a taser in his hands, and I saw it. He… saw me notice it, and they all started towards us, not running, but going faster." She gulped tears, looked sideways at her older siblings, and shuddered. "I was in front. I tried to say something, but— I just froze up, and I felt— I felt ashamed about not even being able to shout, and I wanted so badly to keep anything bad from happening to Matthew or Alicia, and I couldn't do anything but freeze in place.

"Then… it was like something snapped in my head, like— like a big old searchlight came on, and I could _feel it,_ could feel it in me and all around me, and I knew, I just— I knew it was magic, and that I could save us.

"I remembered… after things almost went so bad with Molly, Mom made us all learn the Laws of Magic, so that if we got it, we wouldn't do something illegal or dangerous out of not knowing."

Michael's eyebrows shot up at that, and I knew that I was going to have to have a talk with him about this, and never mind that I didn't really want to.

"So I knew that I couldn't do anything that might kill them," Amanda continued, and she shuddered. "I didn't want to kill them, even, but— but I know Molly didn't _want_ to hurt her friends, so I was careful.

"There was a fire hydrant right there, and I remembered Molly telling us about the fight with the warlock and how one of them hurt you with a fire hydrant cap that he forced off by making the water force it off so that it flew and hit you.

"I could feel the water, then— all of it, down under the street. I called it all to come up and press on the cap-thing the guy was about to pass… and it came, Uncle Harry, it came and— and the cap shot off just as he got next to it, and it hit his leg, broke his leg and he screamed, and the other three started to come at us and I… I made the water spray turn on them. It pushed them back, hard, and… and one grabbed the one I hurt, and they all ran. I tried to stop them with the water, but… but my head hurt, and I was all of the sudden so tired… I couldn't stop them, I'm sorry!"

"Don't be sorry, Amanda," I said, even before Michael could say it. "You saved yourself, you saved your brother and sister, and you did it with your very first use of magic— and without breaking any of the Laws, to boot.

"You did a wonderful job, young lady, and you should be proud of yourself.

"But Amanda, I need you to listen to me very carefully for a minute."

The girl gathered herself visibly, took a deep breath, and looked me in the eyes.

"That was amazing," I said, and smiled as much as I could. "And I know, the temptation to play with the magic, to see what you can do with it, is going to be really huge. But right now, Amanda, that would be dangerous for you. The reason your head hurt is because you don't know the safe ways to think about magic yet, the ways to use it safely, to get around the things about it that can hurt you."

"But… hurt me, really?" Amanda frowned. "It was just a headache, Uncle Harry, it's gone already."

"Just a headache, yes," I agreed, and sighed. "Okay, look— have you ever helped your dad out when he was doing something like wiring the addition, or even just repairing an electrical outlet?"

"Yes, I think we all have, even Maggie. Why?"

"There are rules of safety, right?" I asked. "Things your dad told you not to do, even if you think the power's off, right?"

"Of course, you have to be careful with that sort of thing, it can kill you if you— oh." Amanda blinked. "It can kill me if I'm careless. Magic is power, like electricity is power, and you have to be careful with power.

"All right, I'll not do anything until… when can I start learning?"

This time, Michael was faster. "Amanda, I think you need to think about that. It might be better if you were to put aside the power, let it go. We should ta—"

"No, Daddy." Amanda turned to meet her father's gaze, her expression set and determined. "Daddy, you can't ask me to do that. Magic saved me and Matt and 'Licia today. Magic let Molly save how many lives? Lets Uncle Harry help how many people?

"Daddy, you fought the way you knew how to fight for a long time, and you… you're still so strong, and if whoever did this wants you to trade yourself for Hope and Maggie, everyone here knows you're going to do it.

"I'm going to be like you. I'm going to be like Uncle Harry. I'm going to be like Molly. I'm going to use the magic to help people. I won't give it up. I won't let a gift that God gave me just wither and die, not when I can help people with it.

"Maybe I won't be a Warden, like Molly and Uncle Harry. Maybe I'll just… be able to make things grow, or… or bring rain where it's needed. Maybe I'll learn to heal people with it. Or put out fires. Or… maybe, someday, I'll save someone's life with magic.

"But I'm going to do what you'd do if it was _your_ magic, Daddy.

"I'm going to use it. I'm going to try to do what's _right_ with it."

By the time she finished speaking, Amanda Carpenter was sitting ramrod straight, her shoulders back, her jade green eyes locked on her father's, her chin lifted a little defiantly— and everyone in the room was looking at her with respect or amazement. Or both.

Michael opened his mouth, and his mother said, very quietly, "Michael… hush. Amanda's right. Anything you say against it right now will be said from fear for her sisters' safety— and it will be wrong."

Michael's mouth closed, then his eyes, and his features… settled, slowly. The fear drained out of them, and something that looked like acceptance settled onto his face. He opened his eyes, looked at his daughter… and sighed.

"Then you listen to Harry," Michael said firmly. "You don't do anything with it until you've had lessons in how to use it safely."

"Yes, Daddy," Amanda said quietly— then threw herself in his arms and hugged him ferociously.

After a moment, Michael looked up at me. "All right, Amanda— now we need to see about getting Hope and Maggie back. Harry— young Harry— show Uncle Harry the note, tell him how you got it.

Wordlessly, young Harry, face drawn and eyes red from crying, turned to me and handed me a plain white piece of paper with computer-or-printer-made words on it. It had been tightly folded once, and I knew the folds from my own childhood— it had been folded into a paper airplane, a tight, nose-heavy one that would fly a long way.

It said only, "I have your children. No police. Wait by the phone. After dark, you will be given instructions. If you call the police, you will never see them again."

It was signed simply "N."

"I came out after talking to Miss Williams about my English project, and… and Maggie and Hope weren't outside. A van drove by, and a man called my name— my full name. When I looked up, he threw that at me and said, 'give that to your old man.'

"I… I was scared, and I thought it was just paper, it couldn't be a bomb or nothing, so I opened it. I read it, and I— I ran to the corner, I tried to see the license plate, but I c-c-couldn't catch up t-to them, and… and…."

"Ssh, it's okay," I said, and squeezed the kid's shoulder gently. "You tried, Harry— that means something, says something good about you. It's not your fault, kid. Not even your Dad or I can outrun a speeding van."

At that point, Mouse shoved his head under my hand and made a soft, distressed sound.

"All right, maybe you could have, furball— but we didn't know we'd need to have you there." I scratched his head and thought for a moment. "Okay. The question becomes 'what will he ask for.' Michael, any thoughts?"

"Getting the swords this way would do him no good at all," Michael said immediately. "They would only find their way back to their wielders, and very likely quickly.

"I don't think he's going to be asking for me, Harry. He'll know that I'm protected, that I can't give up that protection even if I want to, and honestly… if this was about me, he could have some hired k—mercenary to come after me without needing to involve the children."

"Kind of what I figured," I said with a sigh. "That means… odds are this is about me.

"Lash, those meditations you taught me for ignoring pain… that implies you've dealt with injuries a lot. Know any healing spells?"

"Not that are safe," Lash replied immediately. "The few healing spells I know… all have a price, and usually, that price is on the black magic side of the equation.

"There are some techniques to speed healing, but at best, it would still be three days before I could expect to have you healthy enough to be thinking of fighting."

I opened my mouth, and Buffy put her hand over it, then said, "Lash, they have his little girl and one of Michael's kids. He's already _going_ to fight, it's not even a case of thinking about it.

"Anything you can do to help him recover faster… please, start it pretty much now."

See why I love her? She knows me so well, and she wasn't trying to say that I couldn't or shouldn't be fighting. Joseph was right— if I let her get away, I wouldn't deserve any more help from him.

Lash sighed, looked at me sorrowfully and said, "It would be best done away from too many people, and I warn you— it won't be enough, Harry."

"I'll take whatever you can do," I told her. "Buffy's right. They have Maggie. I'm going to fight them."

"Michael, may I take Harry and Buffy into the family room for a while? And could we have some privacy? Quiet and concentration will be needed." Lash shook her head a little and shot me a look. "Stubborn man."

"He is, isn't he," Michael said with a wan smile. "Of course, Lash, you three go on in there— we'll leave you alone until supper, at least."

"Perfect, thank you," Lash said, standing. She shot me another look, a stern one. "And you _will_ be eating supper, Harry— all the speed I can lend your recovery won't help at all without fueling the body's healing."

"Understood," I agreed. Buffy helped me get up, and we three started for the family room Michael had finished. "Lash… thank you."

"Thank me by living through what comes of this," she said simply.

I stopped at the door to the family room and looked over my shoulder at Michael, remembering the last time that Nicodemus— who was surely behind the kidnapping of Maggie and Hope— had been going to call to discuss terms, some three and a half years before. "Michael." He looked up at me and I said, "Before dark— right now, in fact— get all the blinds in the house closed."

He nodded, and I let myself be led into the family room.

Lash started pulling cushions off of the nearest couch, then went and got one more from a couch on the far side of the room. Laid end-to-end on the floor, the cushions were long enough even for me to lay down on comfortably, and I did so when Lash told me to, taking off my shirt first and leaving room above my head for her to sit as she instructed.

"All right," Lash said, sitting Indian-style on the cushions above my head. "Buffy, I'm going to be touching Harry an awful lot— I wanted you here because I… still feel a little unsure about… things, even after our talk about this."

"Oh, please." Buffy rolled her eyes and sighed exaggeratedly. "And here I thought you were going to draw some of my slayer oomph off into Harry.

"Lash. You love Harry, right? Not romantically, but you love him, right?"

"Well, I— yes. Yes, I do." Lash blushed, and I tried not to grin. "He's my best friend, my big brother… I love him."

"Harry, you love Lash, right?" Buffy kept right on going, as direct as she almost always was, when the feelings in question weren't her own.

"Yes, I love her," I agreed, and I don't think I blushed even. "I guess this makes three best friends and one little sister for me. The little sister bit is funny, because she's way older and way smarter than me."

"Okay." Buffy looked back at Lash. "I love him, too. He loves me. We're a couple, you're our friend, Lash— and you're doing your damnedest to help, so I love you, too. I can always stand another sister— if you turn out half as well as the last one, it's all aces.

"So can we please just hang the insecurity blanket on the back of a door and get on with what has to be done to give us the best chance at saving the girls without losing anyone from our side?

"Lash, touch him all you need to. Harry, don't get tense about it, even if it feels good, which, hey— healing! It probably will feel good.

"Now— go to work, Lash, and if you blush too much, I'm gonna hang an embarrassing nickname on you for it. Like 'Cherry.' Or even— ooo, 'Raspberry,' that'd be embarrassing!"

Lash stared at Buffy for a moment, then sighed and said, "You're right. But it takes a lot of getting used to, being human. This is the hardest part, I think."

"Nah," Buffy said, taking my hand. "That's later, when you start dating. Or a least when you finally manage to look Dawn in the eye for more than two seconds without smiling and blushing."

Lash sputtered in helpless indignation for a moment, then laughed. "All right, all right— you win, I blush too much and too easily.

"Harry, close your eyes, relax as best you can. Buffy will have to let go of your hand, briefly, later in the working, but not for long.

"Personally, I'm glad your injury is where it is— much lower and I'd have had to ask you to take off your pants as well, and Buffy would probably call me 'Raspberry' for the rest of my life."

"With my history?" Buffy sounded smug, and she squeezed my hand as she said "Probably longer than that."

Lash laughed again, and then went to work.

What she did was a lot like acupressure— but her hands felt slightly cooler than normal, and with every touch, I could feel a low, gentle current of magic working through me. It reminded me of the last time I'd worked with Elaine Mallory, my first love, and she'd used a technique she'd based on an old Japanese discipline called "reiki." There had been more massage than acupressure to Elaine's technique, but the general principles seemed the same— and were very relaxing.

Lash spoke while she worked, talked at first about nothing in particular, just rambling about the things she'd seen and felt and tasted since taking on a human body. Then Buffy asked an interesting question, and I sharpened my attention to listen to the answer.

"So can human-you remember everything that angel-you ever did or learned?"

"Oh, no." Lash sounded amused and embarrassed at the same time. "There's not enough room in a human memory for all the time I existed as a fallen angel, let alone the time before I fell. I had to… pick and choose what to bring with me. Mostly it was… well, easier than you might expect.

"I deliberately abandoned my memories of Heaven, for if I am to be mortal, I cannot know what to expect after I die. I gave up… much for that right, that… please don't laugh, but for that privilege."

"That's not something I'd laugh at," Buffy said softly, her voice very serious. "That you think of this as a privilege, after all you've done, known, experienced…? Lash, that's flattering. To me, to everyone human, that's the nicest thing you could've said." I squeezed Buffy's hand, not wanting to speak— I was drifting far above the pain, didn't want to break that charm by speaking— and she said, "Harry thinks so, too."

"I… am glad that you both understand."

"I don't think I do—" I squeezed again, and Buffy squeezed back. "—and neither does Harry. We probably _can't_ actually understand… but we don't have to, to think that it's pretty damned cool."

There was a long moment of quiet, and in my head, I could see Lash blushing and smiling.

"So I chose very carefully what to remember." Lash sounded like she was smiling as she spoke, and her hands never slowed in their gentle motion and pressure. "I kept all my memories of magic and the things that can be done with it, because I knew that this would let me help Harry, and others. I kept… all of my memories of the time I was in Harry's head. I kept all of the things I had promised to tell him, and all of the nearest levels of contextual information related to that, so that I can explain it, when the time comes. After that… I kept my knowledge of languages, I speak all of the major languages on Earth, and some of the more used dialects.

"And… I kept some memories of the things I did as Lasciel. The… the hurts I caused, the damage I did, the… I made myself remember the… the amusement she took in manipulating, weaving webs that left those humans she dealt with thinking and feeling that the only choices they had left were those she presented them."

"Why would you keep those?" Buffy sounded a little shocked, and her hand tightened on mine for a moment. "Why hurt yourself like that?"

"Because I will not ever, _ever_ be that person again." Lash's voice was flat and implacable. "I must remember those things, that I can avoid repeating them, that I can have some hope of atoning for them. I am sure to encounter Lasciel someday, Buffy, and I will not be trapped by her, or manipulated by her.

"To avoid that, I must remember… the pain. The delight in causing the pain. The… 'the long game,' as she called it. The way she'd pick up threads left by a previous host, one who'd been defeated, or given up her coin, pick them up and again start weaving them….

"That's why I kept those memories. To oppose what I was, I must remember it."

For a long, long moment, no one spoke. Nothing would have been adequate, I don't think.

"You know," Buffy said slowly after a long moment, "I realize that you haven't really known her for more than a couple of days, and I realize that you may not even know if you're actually attracted to women yet… but I'll tell you right now that if you are, and if you do end up dating my sister… don't worry about asking my permission to marry her, if it comes to that, and Illinois legalizes it.

"You're pre-approved to marry Dawn."

I could _hear_ Lash blushing again, and I could hear the smile on her face when she said simply, "Thank you, Buffy."

"You're welcome, Lash.

"So, what other memories did you keep?" Buffy's smile was as plain in her voice as Lash's was.

They talked for a while, and I drifted in and out. I noticed when Buffy let go of my hand for a while, as Lash worked that hand, then took it again when Lash finished there.

Finally, Lash seemed to finish her treatment— or so I thought. Her hands left me, and she said, "Harry? Don't move, but I need you to… pay attention for a moment. And Buffy, you should let go of his hand."

Buffy released my hand, and I made myself focus, come away from the drifting peace I was experiencing. "Lash, that felt amazing, thank you."

"That was just the preparation, Harry," Lash said, sounding amused. "Now comes the actual treatment, now that your body is ready to receive the power I'm going to summon into it. That's what the acupressure and massage was all about— opening your body to the magic around you.

"Now… now I'm going to up the flow. It won't hurt, but you may feel a sensation like… a tingling, foot-was-asleep-now-it's-waking-up sort of thing. Only all over, all right?"

"Okey-doke," I agreed— and Lash said a single word.

Magic hit every single one of the acupressure spots that Lash had worked on, and apparently opened, as I felt the energy flowing in, gently, but undeniably, and it did tingle, like she said.

It also all moved, slowly but undeniably, to my injured side. At the same time, everywhere it passed felt… I hadn't really noticed the whole-body ache that was probably a remainder of the demonic poison that had gotten into my system, but I noticed it now, as it diminished a little— and kept on doing so, slowly but surely.

I lay there for quite some time, just luxuriating in the feeling of returning energy, the slow-but-steady reduction of pain, and the idea that I might be healing fast enough to let me help my child and Michael's.

After a long while, I heard a knock on the family room door, and Molly, returned from Edinburgh, stuck her head in and said, "Supper's ready, everyone. Boss, how do you feel?"

"Better," I said, and I sat up slowly, let Buffy help me do so. "Not a hundred percent or anything, but… better."

Buffy got me up and stayed under one shoulder, and Lash got under the other. I leaned on them as needed, not wanting to undo any of what Lash had done.

Murphy had arrived while Lash worked on me, and she gave me a long, careful hug when we came out— I was grateful, and glad that someone had thought to call her. I'd had too much on my mind to think of it.

Supper was amazing— apparently, Michael's mother had been the one to teach Charity much of what she knew about cooking. I ate hugely, partly to fuel the repairs that Lash's magical treatment were speeding up and partly just because the food was that good.

After supper, Lash and Buffy made me go lie down, and I ended up on the floor of the family room again, to avoid the stairs and to be as comfortable as possible.

Mouse came in and lay beside me, Buffy sat in a chair nearby, and Lash sat talking with Molly and Dawn (I wondered idly how much blushing was going on) in chairs around the fireplace.

Michael sat next to the one phone in the room, his lips moving constantly in uninterrupted prayer.

The call came after midnight, probably from sheer spite— Nicodemus could be an asshole that way. Michael was still awake, of course, as were most of us adults (Daniel, the oldest of Michael's boys, had fallen asleep in a recliner).

Michael answered it halfway through the first ring, and he did so by saying, "Hello, Nicodemus."

For a long moment, Michael said nothing, just listened as Nicodemus spoke. Then he said, "It's not too late, you know. You can still give up the coin."

All of us in the room heard Nicodemus laugh out loud at that. Then he said something else to Michael, who said, "No. Not until I hear them, both of them, so that I know they're unharmed."

A moment later, Michael tilted the phone away from his ear, and we all heard, dimly, Hope Carpenter say, "We're okay, Daddy. They aren't hurting us, they're just… trying to be scary. But even Maggie isn't scared."

"These _pendejos_ ain't nothin' to be scared of!" Maggie's voice, scornful and angry, and I sagged in sheer relief to hear it. "We're okay, Michael."

"Language, Maggie," Michael said, trying for stern and managing relieved.

"Now," said another voice a moment later, a voice I recognized as that of Nicodemus, the nominal leader of the Order of the Blackened Denarius. "You've heard them. Give me Dresden, I know he's there."

Michael brought me the phone— an old, cord-equipped phone that he'd brought in from somewhere else in the house, so that the wizards in the vicinity would be less likely to mess with it— and I took the receiver and said, "Well?"

"Dresden," Nicodemus snarled and his voice was loaded with as much hate as I'd ever heard. "You for the girls— but my way!"

"I'm listening," I said calmly.

Nicodemus talked briefly, outlining the conditions of the exchange, and I winced. This wasn't going to be easy to get around. In fact, I wasn't sure that I could get around his conditions. Once he'd told me the condition I was to be in, I asked, simply, "Where and when?"

I had hopes, but he dashed them, didn't specify the island where we'd met last, and that I'd since turned into a sanctum for me via spell.

He answered me, said, "Any violations and the girls die. I'll have my men shoot them in the stomach, too— it will be _agonizing,_ Dresden."

I tried to hold it in, but I couldn't. It wasn't that it was Maggie and Hope, it really wasn't— it was that he'd threaten to do that to _kids,_ to _little girls,_ and never mind that they were girls I cared about.

"I'm going to kill you," I said, my voice flat and implacable. "I'll play it your way, Nicodemus— and I'll kill you anyway. This time, I won't leave the job half-done."

"If you can, with all the conditions I've set," Nicodemus said, his voice half snarl, "then I guarantee you that I will take you with me!"

"We'll find out, won't we?"

He hung up on me.

I unclenched my teeth and let out a breath that almost came out a growl.

"How bad is it?" Michael asked.

"He's thought it through." I dry scrubbed my face, inhaled slowly, and shook my head. "It's pretty bad."

"Tell us," Buffy said, taking my hand.

So I did.

I was to show up at an abandoned airfield south of Chicago at two o'clock the next afternoon. I was to be driven by someone with no magical powers, and we were to stop at the gate. There, I was to get out and show that I was dressed as Nicodemus demanded; running shorts and low-top sneakers. I was not to be wearing any thing else, especially not jewelry, and I wasn't to be carrying anything. I was to turn slowly, with my hands over my head, to demonstrate that I had no weapons behind my back. Only then would the gate be opened, and I be allowed in. The gates would be left open, and as I went in, the girls would be sent out. They were to reach the gate about the time I reached Nicodemus and his men, who would be waiting for me. The driver would be allowed to leave with the girls— and I'd be Nick's personal play-toy for a while, until I died.

For a long moment, there was silence, then Michael said, "He'll try to kill the girls and the driver."

"Yeah," I said, and shook my head. "This one's gonna be a pain to get out of with everyone okay."

"Why is he so determined to kill you, Harry?" Sanya asked, and I think he beat Michael to it by maybe a tenth of a second.

"Ah." I shifted a little, then gave it up and laid back down flat. "Well, the night Michael got hurt so badly… on the island?"

"I remember, yes," the big Russian said. "Did something happen that you didn't tell us about then?"

"Uh, yeah," I admitted. "Nicodemus sort of ambushed me at the boat. Tried to have Lasciel's shadow hold me so he could take me away. But of course—"

"I was no longer there!" Lash said with a laugh. "You bluffed him, didn't you?"

"I did." I took a deep breath and said, "I bluffed him— then I damn near killed him. Only failed because Deirdre— his daughter for any not in the know— showed up with about a bajillion of those mute guys they use for thugs, and I had to toss him overboard to distract them so I could get away."

"Almost— but how, the Barabbas Noose makes him invulnerable to harm!" Michael protested.

"Michael, there's always a catch to things like these, a hole in the magic— has to be to let it function." I smiled a small, hard smile. "I figured out his.

"Nicodemus is invulnerable to harm— from anything but _the noose itself."_

For a moment, Michael simply stared at me. Then he licked his lips and said, "Why didn't you tell me?"

"You were out of the game," I said with a shrug. "Also, I figured that if he thought other people knew, Nicodemus would start killing them. By keeping it a secret, well… I was protecting people."

"So why tell us now?" Molly asked, her voice… full of something that I thought might be anger, though I wasn't sure why.

"Uh." I gulped and looked down at my feet, not wanting to look at any of my friends. "I don't think… I can't see a way out of this one. I'll try, I'll go down fighting, hit him with my death curse, but… I really don't see a way for me to come out of this one alive.

"I wanted to make sure you people know how to hurt him if I… don't come back this time."

For a long moment, there was silence— then Molly, Buffy, Michael, and Murphy all started talking.

Well, Michael started talking. The ladies were doing something more like shouting.

Finally, Molly managed to out-shout everyone else.

"LIKE HELL YOU'RE DYING!" That shut everyone up, and Molly took several steps closer, stood glaring down at me, and she looked so much like her mother at that moment that I actually cringed. "You're NOT dying— we're not letting it happen. _You're_ not letting it happen! You've faced down fucking Outsiders, Harry, and walked away from it. So what the hell has this guy got that the one thing most wizards on the planet fear more than any other got that Outsiders don't?"

"Well, I—"

"He's got nothing!" Molly swung her arm out to point at several people as she continued.

Pointing at Buffy: "We've got the freaking _slayer,_ who happens to be in love with you, and will probably fight like seventeen kinds of hell to keep you alive!"

Pointing at Lash: "We've got a wizard who knows spells for doing things that the _Senior Council_ of the White Council of Wizards have never seen or heard of, things they thought couldn't be done!"

Pointing at Xander, then Sanya, then Lash: "We've got three, count them, THREE knights of the cross, which the world hasn't seen in almost ten years!"

Pointing at Dawn: "We've got the last pure Watcher, who's got a whole bunch of scary-useful stuff in her head, stuff that surprises even Buffy and Xander!"

Pointing at Carlos: "We've got the youngest ever Regional Commander of the Wardens of the White Council of Wizards, a wizard you've fought beside and know is deadly dangerous and who happens to be one of your best friends."

(She had a point. Make that _four_ best friends and a little sister.)

Pointing at Murphy: "You've got the single most experienced pure mortal combatant against magical creatures in the world, one who's saved your life on more than one occasion!"

Pointing at Mouse: "We've got your magical super-dog, who, if what you told us after the last time you met Nicodemus is true, actually scares him!"

Pointing at her dad: "You've got a veteran in this kind of battle, one who can help you plan strategies, and maybe shoot down stuff that won't work, suggest things that will."

Finally, Molly pointed at herself. "And you've got me! The apprentice you trained, the one who impressed the Captain of the Wardens with her freaky approach to combat with magic that shouldn't be usable combatively. Your apprentice, who can veil things so well that a warlock using magic taught him by an Outsider, augmented by an Outsider, maybe even _possessed_ by an Outsider, couldn't detect her!

"So don't you DARE lay there and say you can't get out of this alive, Harry Dresden, or so help me GOD, I will tell everyone here about the day of your first big date with Anastasia, and you do NOT want that!"

I lay there and gaped, and thought about using my wizard's Sight to see if Molly was maybe possessed by the ghost of her mother.

Then I heard Buffy chuckle. "You go, Molly."

"Damn straight," Murphy added. "Kid, that was priceless!"

"I'm jealous," Carlos said, grinning at her. "I could never get away with yelling at his dinosaur-ness like that. You rock, Molly."

The others chimed in— and I found myself grinning so widely that it made my cheeks burn.

"Okay." I sat up, took Buffy's hand when she offered it, let her pull me to my feet. "Okay, Molly. I'm sorry."

"You should be." She threw her head back with an imperious sniff, and glared at me. "So— what now?"

"Now," I said slowly, heading for the table normally used for games and sitting at its head, with Buffy next to me to help support me, "we start brainstorming.

"If I'm going to come out of this alive, we're going to have to be sneakier than a two-thousand year old man— and the fallen angel that lives in his head."

The others came over and sat down as Carlos snorted and said, "Okay, so what's the hard part?"

I laughed— and we started working on a way to save me as well as the girls.


	30. Chapter 30

Chapter 30

_1:57 PM_

At just a couple of minutes before two o'clock the next afternoon, Dawn pulled up in front of the gates of the now-out-of-service Sollitt Regional Airport, some five miles from the unincorporated town of Sollitt. From the outside the airport seemed to consist of four old hangars, a ratty, dangerous-looking control tower that was missing all its windows, and four cracked concrete runways laid out in a pair of X patterns. Weeds grew up from the cracks in the runways, and the nearest hangar, some hundred yards from the gates, stood open.

"Someone's in the tower," Dawn said to me, looking at me, not the building in question. "Probably a sniper. Try to get any of the bad guys that you can between you and it."

"Yeah, good idea," I said, trying hard to remain calm. "Also one in the hangar. Saw him step back as we pulled up. Had a rifle and scope, looked like.

"You ready, Watcher Sinclair?"

"As ready as I'm gonna get, Wizard Dresden." She leaned across the seat and kissed my cheek. "It'll be okay, Harry— we'll figure out a way to get you back. Just…." She trailed off and her voice wavered. "Just hang on as long as you can, okay? Molly and Carlos are already working on a way to rescue you.

"I wish you'd let us call in your old mentor, Harry, he—"

"No." I shook my head firmly and opened the passenger's door of the hideous little car that I'd had Xander go out and buy that morning, just for this purpose. It being a 1970 Ford Pinto was bad, but the utterly hideous chartreuse color of the thing made it much worse. "He's got enough on his mind." I got out, then leaned down and said, "Listen, tell everyone… tell them goodbye. And tell your sister… well."

"I'll tell them," Dawn said, and tears overspilled her eyes. "Harry, you can't just—"

"Too late, kiddo," I sighed. I closed the door, then leaned down and said into the open window. "I already have."

I walked the seven paces to the gate, stood there and raised my hands over my head, then turned slowly to show that I was dressed as I'd been told wearing only running shorts and sneakers (well, those and a bandage over the wound in my stomach), and had no weapons of any sort.

The gate buzzed and popped open a few inches. I opened it wide, wedged it as solidly as I could in the high weeds and grass to the side, so that Nicodemus couldn't close it before the girls reached it, and I started into the airport, walking on the gravel path that turned to cracked concrete maybe ten paces inside the gate.

I was about to get stubborn and stop until I saw the girls when I _did_ see them, Maggie and Hope, walking out of the hangar that stood open. They were holding hands, and Hope seemed to be trying to watch behind them as they walked.

Yeah. I figured. The man I'd seen in there with the rifle was almost certainly keeping it trained on the girls. Well, I'd just have to make sure that he didn't get a shot— the timing would be tricky, maybe, but I could do it, if I had to.

I walked on, and when the girls got close, Hope called, "Uncle Harry, they're going to try to— to—"

"I know," I said, just loud enough for the girls to hear. "It's okay— I'll be fine. Go to the car, and go to the passenger's side right away, okay?"

"Yes, Uncle Harry," Hope said. She sighed, a shuddery thing that told me she was close to tears. "Promise you'll be okay?"

I winced at that and said, "I promise to try, Hope. I'm not ready to give up yet."

Then Maggie spoke, and her voice was more watery than Hope's. "I— you have to be okay, Uncle Harry." Good girl, remembering not to call me Daddy. "You be careful and you be okay."

As they got almost to me, a couple of steps from where we'd pass each other, Hope Carpenter proved that she was her mother's daughter— she gave me a piece of information that would almost certainly help me, if I lived long enough.

Hope brought her free hand— she and Maggie were holding hands tightly enough that both girls' fingers were white— up to her eyes, touched just under them with her index and middle fingers, then touched her forehead with those same two fingers, and as she lowered her hand, held up four fingers. At the same time she did this, she made a sound that was a pretty creditable imitation of a sneeze, so that any watchers might think she was covering her nose and mouth. What she was really doing was telling me that there were four Denarians— _four people with eyes on their foreheads_— in the hangar. Smart kid!

"I'll see you girls soon," I said as we passed each other, trying to sound brave. "Remember, straight to the passenger's side of the car."

"Yes, sir," Maggie said, her voice now more sob than speech.

We passed, and I made myself deliberately move slowly, despite the nervous energy I felt, the desire just to get this over with. I moved in deliberately short steps, and at a deliberately slow pace.

Ten paces past the girls, I looked back over my shoulder, saw that Dawn had gotten out of the car, moved to the passenger's side and opened the door there. Good, good— all according to plan.

I kept moving slowly, and soon enough I saw figures in the mouth of the hangar, just patches of deeper darkness against the shadowy interior, and I started counting. I managed to distinguish eight silhouettes, which meant that, if Hope was right, there were four Denarians and four normal humans in the hangar.

Nicodemus stepped out first, and I shuddered a little.

Nicodemus was average height, maybe a little under, and a slightly more slender than average build. Usually, he wore a lot of black and grey, but today, he wore gray slacks and a red button-down shirt— which was buttoned all the way to the throat, with the Barabbas noose apparently under the shirt and not visible.

Darn. That was annoying. Not too annoying, I was perfectly willing to tear his shirt open to get at the noose, but it was an annoyance.

Nicodemus carried an unsheathed saber in his right hand, one of the straight ones that had been fairly common in Spain in the nineteenth century. You know— like Zorro uses in the movies. His shadow, a separate entity from him (or so it seemed— that might have been the effect of the fallen angel he had in his head, I couldn't tell, and none of the knights knew— maybe when Ivy finished her information dump on the Knights we'd find out), danced around his feet, seemingly capering in joy at the prospect of killing me.

Behind Nick and his shadow, I saw the unmistakable, bat-winged, battle-mode figure of the Denarian Rosanna, whom I had not expected to see— I thought she preferred to run around with Nicodemus's wife, Tessa. If Tessa was here, things were going to be harder….

Then two more figures stepped out of the hangar, and I proved my insanity by relaxing a bit. Neither of them was Nicodemus's wife. One I recognized as Deirdre, Nicodemus's daughter by Tessa (with whom he gave the appearance of having an incestuous relationship, ick!), though she was looking human, not yet shifted into her combat form.

The last figure, I hadn't seen before. It was a tall man, only a little shorter than me— and more strongly built. He had that balance between bulk and ability to move freely that you see on gymnasts, and he was handsome enough that he was probably in the same class as my brother, Thomas. Golden-blond hair, long and in a ponytail, movie-star features (right down to the dimple in his chin), bronzed skin… I decided that I hated him, just for how inadequate he made me feel. I wondered if he were the last Denarian that Hope had warned me about— that would give me a better reason to hate him, after all….

I slowed my pace to barely a crawl, and Nicodemus started striding towards me, waving his free arm in a "hurry up" gesture. I moved a little faster, but only a little. I needed the girls to make the car. They didn't have to get in, they only had to get _to the car,_ and they'd be safe….

"Move, Dresden!" Nicodemus snarled from maybe thirty yards away. He pulled a radio off of his belt and said, "Move, or I'll order my sniper to shoot them!"

That was a mistake— letting me see the radio, telling me that he wasn't in direct contact with his sniper. I hesitated for a second, worried that one of the other Denarians might also have a radio, but shook it off— Nicodemus wasn't much on trust, and I was sure that he wouldn't trust even his daughter or the mother of his son with the fate of his hostages.

I pointed at the radio, focused my will, and growled, "Hexus!"

Sparks and smoke puffed from the radio, and Nicodemus swore and dropped it.

I grinned at him and said, "Play fair, Nick— because this is your last game."

"Insolent child!" he snapped, and took two long strides towards me before he stopped and looked back to the others. "Rosanna! Go tell the tower sniper to kill all three targets!"

Rosanna didn't say anything, just nodded, stepped out of the hangar and leapt into the sky, bat-like wings flapping, heading for the tower.

I glanced over my shoulder to see the girls almost to the car, saw them go around it— and saw a flash of light as Lash appeared beside the car, scooped up Maggie with one hand, threw something on the ground with the other even as Dawn pulled Hope to her. Lash, carrying my daughter, Dawn and Hope all stepped onto whatever Lash had tossed on the ground, Lash shouted a word— and all of them disappeared in a flash like that which had heralded Lash's arrival.

A spilt-second later, I heard the crack of a rifle— and I laughed out loud.

"You really didn't think we'd trust you to actually let the girls go, did you, Nick?" I called, shaking my head and laughing a relieved laugh. "I mean, come on— we all know that you're as trustworthy as I am short!"

Nicodemus snarled like an animal, turned towards the tower and screamed "KEEP SHOOTING! THEY'RE STILL THERE! NO ONE COULD TELEPORT AWAY THAT FAST!"

I laughed so hard that it hurt when he said that— and Nicodemus Archleone, the most dangerous foe I'd ever faced, turned and started towards me, sword back to swing, and murder in his eyes.

_The night before:_

"Nicodemus is going to try to kill the girls and whoever we send to drop me off and pick them up," I said, shaking my head and rubbing my eyes. "That's the first thing we have to figure out— how to stop that."

"He said it has to be someone with no magic that drops you off," Murphy said, sighing. "I'm thinking that will have to put Sanya, Xander and Lash out of the running, too, right?"

"And me," Michael said with a sigh. "The protections I have will qualify as magic."

"So it's me, Dawn or Daniel," Murphy said, a frown creasing her brow. "Daniel, no offense— but the protection you get through your father probably disqualifies you, too."

"No offense taken." The young man actually managed a small smile. "I'll stay here, or go to wherever the operation is mounted from, and I'll protect that end of things. Or if you need me for something else, I'll do that.

"I'll help however you want me to— but please, let me help."

"That won't be a problem." Murphy sighed and looked at Michael. "Assuming you've no objections?"

"Daniel learned to fight from his mother and I, and has taken martial arts courses on his own initiative," Michael told her. "So long as he prepares properly— armor and weapons, son— I've no objections."

"Excellent," I said, and nodded at Michael's oldest. "If you learned from your folks, I know you're good enough— we'll find a place for you, Daniel."

He nodded and sat back to listen to us plan.

"Okay, so it's me or Dawn on driver duty," Murphy went on. "Can one of you wizard types prepare a charm? A giz-widget? Something that will shield us and the girls?"

"It should be me," Dawn said immediately. She looked at Murphy and said, "Karrin, I'm good at the whole Watcher gig, and I can fight— but I don't think even for a second that I'm your equal as a fighter, and I don't have your experience with the supernatural on _this world._ There are enough differences between here and the Earth that Buffy, Xander and I come from that I know I can't match you there, not yet.

"So I should be the driver. That will free you up for whatever fighting there's going to be."

"Okay." Murph looked at Buffy. "Do you agree?"

"Sadly, yes," Buffy sighed. "Dawn… thanks. But please, for the sake of what sanity I have left… be careful."

"Believe me, I will be," Dawn agreed. "So, can you give me something to let me put up a shield or something?"

"I'm afraid not." I looked at Molly. "Unless you have something like that done already?"

"I don't," Molly said. "Sorry, Dawn, but what you're asking would take weeks— maybe only days, if we made it a one-use thing."

"What about teleporting us out?" Dawn asked. "Can you do that?"

"It would take too long," I said. "Teleporting is messy and complex. Usually takes a circle, if you want to go more than fifty yards or so, and there won't be time to lay out a circle.

"Unless— Lash, you're way ahead of the curve on magic. Can you teleport fast and far without a circle?"

Lash shook her head, looked sad. "I'm sorry, but no. The bending of space that way… it's just not safe without a circle. Now, I could do it with a smaller, less complex circle than most, yes— but we're still talking at least five minutes to lay out the diagrams, and that's not including the calculations for destination."

Dawn got a funny look on her face, tilted her head, and said, "How small a circle could you get away with?"

"Oh, I could do it in an eighteen-inch diameter circle, but that wouldn't leave enough space for someone else to get in it with me, not if I weren't carrying them," Lash elaborated.

"So… three feet would be big enough for say, you carrying Maggie and me carrying Hope?"

"Yes, three feet would be plenty big." Lash tilted her head and looked at Dawn curiously. "In fact, you probably wouldn't even have to carry Hope. Why, what are you thinking?"

"Karrin, can I have your car keys for a second, please?" Dawn had a smile on her face that was rapidly expanding to a grin. "I have an idea, but it's easier to show than try to explain, and I need something from your car."

Karrin handed Dawn her keys, though she looked as mystified as the rest of us. Dawn ran— literally— out of the house, and came back a minute or two later carrying Murphy's keys in one hand and a nylon pouch about a foot across in the other. She tossed Murph's keys back to her, and I saw Karrin start to grin as she caught them. Apparently, she now knew what Dawn had thought of— and agreed with it.

Dawn reached into the nylon pouch, pulled out a circle of silver-gray cloth edged in black that was about a foot across— but when she shifted her grip, the cloth suddenly snapped open, and I realized that it had been sort of coiled.

Dawn held up the three-foot diameter circle that was half of the sun-shades that Murphy put in her windshield— round and in two pieces to better fit in more varieties of car windshield— and said, "Could you prepare a teleport spell in advance on this, Lash?"

Lash matched Dawn's grin and said, "Yes! Yes, that's perfect, thank you, Dawn!"

An idea took me, and I reached for my wallet. "Murphy, where did you get those?"

"Walmart," Karrin replied. "They were less than ten bucks, but I don't remember how much less, and that was last summer."

I pulled out five twenties, folded them tightly and tossed them to Dawn. "As soon as the planning session is over, I want ten packs of those— redundancy is your friend, and any we don't use for this, I'm sure we'll use later. Get someone to drive you, or pass the job off— but either way, thank you, Dawn. You just made it a lot more likely that Maggie and Hope come out alive— as well as you coming out alive. Thanks."

"You're welcome," Dawn said cheerfully. "Glad to help. Also, glad to get out alive myself!"

"Smart and practical." I grinned at Buffy. "Seriously, now— you and your mom did a great job on this one."

"We had help," Buffy admitted. "Xander and… and Willow deserve some credit, too."

I didn't step on that old memory, just tossed Xander a little salute and said, "Okay. Thanks to the Watcher over there, we just got a game-changer. Reinforcements just got a lot easier to bring in."

"Well, sort of," Molly said. She looked at me, saw my blank expression— and rolled her eyes. "Oh, come on, Harry! Don't tell me you haven't thought of the other way to bring in reinforcements!"

I gave Molly a mild glare. "Obviously I haven't. So tell me, O Wise Jedi, what did I miss?"

Molly pointed at me. I didn't get it, tilted my head to tell her so— and Buffy laughed.

"Oh, crap— I didn't see it either, Molly. And judging by the looks around the room, only you, Dawn and Murphy did.

"Harry— your amulet. The information on getting around in the Nevernever."

I smacked myself in the forehead. "D'oh! I don't believe I forgot that!"

"You've been sick," Molly said in a cloyingly sweet, pitying voice. "It's all right, Harry."

"Wiseass," I muttered— and the others laughed. After a second, I joined in— might as well, it was kind of funny.

"Okay, that's stage one solved," I said once we'd all stopped laughing. "Or at least roughed out.

"Now— stage two. Me living through this, and preferably killing the hell out of Nicodemus."

_2:03 PM_

Nicodemus stalked towards me, and I laughed more. "I'm sorry, it's just— seriously, you thought we were stupid enough to trust _you!_ Come on, Nick, give us a little credit!"

"Shut up!" he snarled, and leveled the sword at my throat. "Shut up _now_— or I'll kill you right here and now!"

"Bring it." I growled the words, but I smiled. "You've got a sword, Nicky, and I'm barehanded— so you just bring it to me!"

Nicodemus took one step forward, his anger blazing in his eyes— then he cocked his head and slowly smiled at me. "No. Too confident. Far too confident….

"The old man is here somewhere. That's what that little exchange in the car was about— it was misdirection. Your mentor, the White Council's precious Blackstaff, is here somewhere. And he's… what? Waiting for me to attack you so that he can honestly say that he didn't break the Accords?

"Everyone, fan out— find the wizard. Belaziel, you should switch forms."

A pair of green glowing eyes opened in the forehead of the blond man, and the gender-neutral-but-beautiful tones of a fallen angel came from his mouth. "Agreed. One moment."

The big man's form shifted quickly, and between that and the way Nicodemus had referred to him by the name of the Fallen in his coin, I figured that Belaziel was in charge. Either the human host was new, or he'd lost too much of his mind to be useful, and the Fallen was in control.

The change in form was almost instantaneous, probably aided by the fact that there wasn't a huge change in mass, like there had been with Thalariel back in the warehouse. From where I was on the path to the hangar, the Denarian's battle-form looked vaguely like a satyr, a half-man, half-goat, except that its head seemed… out of proportion. Too large for the body it sat on. Then it stepped out of the hangar into the sun, and I could see why the head looked too big. It was because of the thing's freaking mane.

Belaziel's battle form looked a lot like a humanoid lion, save that its fur was a deep red, and the mane around the head a purple so deep as to edge on black. He had visible claws on his fingertips, and I could hear the click of claws on the concrete when he walked.

"If the Blackstaff is here, he may have thought to veil from all senses," Belaziel warned Nicodemus, "but I shall check as carefully as I may."

"Be careful," Nicodemus warned. "The old man is crafty— and by being free to break the laws of magic, his effective strength is increased… nearly exponentially."

Me, I was fighting not to laugh. They'd bought it, hook, line and sinker.

_The night before:_

"Wait, before we go too much farther," Murphy said after I'd suggested moving on to stage two, "we should think about this a little more.

"Harry, they're going to be looking for you to have back-up. How do we get our people into the area safely?"

"Oooo, good point," Buffy said, looking thoughtful. "After that thing at the warehouse, even I don't want them looking for me."

"Besides, if they're looking for something specific in Harry's back-up, and they get something besides what they're looking for, it'll mess them up a little," Xander said. He nodded Buffy's way and said, "I'm with Buff— now that I've faced one of these things, my respect for them has gone even higher, and I knew enough about them to be worried from the books I read back home."

"A wise man," Michael said, nodding at Xander. He smiled and said, "Harry chose wisely Xander— I'm glad you have _Amoracchius_.

"And so that you have no doubts, Lash… I know that Shiro, wherever he is, approves of you wielding _Fidelacchius_. Though I suppose the two of you shoot down a theory of Harry's."

"Not necessarily," Lash and I said at the same time. (Of course she knew my theory about the blood of kings being a part of the requirements for wielding a Sword of the Cross; she'd lived in my head for years.)

"Xander's mom used to tell him they were descended from… who was it again, Xander?" I asked.

"Charles II of England." Xander shook his head a little. "She always said we were descended from one of the bastards he didn't acknowledge, and I thought she was nuts. But from what Harry's said… she probably wasn't."

"And I do not know whom my body might have descended from," Lash said. "I suppose I could find out, but I don't think it's necessary. Harry is right, just on a statistical sampling."

"I suppose," Michael said, and sighed. "Still, I would feel more confident if we knew your own lineage, Lash."

"We do," Lash said quietly. "I am a daughter of the only King who truly matters, Michael."

Michael's mouth opened, stayed open for moment, then closed with a snap. He stood— not a terribly easy thing for him, remember— and actually _bowed_ to Lash. He spoke, then, and to me, not Lash.

"Harry… your choice for the Sword of Faith was as wise as any you have ever made— and I thank you." Then he smiled at Lash and said, "I thank you as well— for the reminder."

"You're very welcome, Michael," Lash said, and she smiled at him. "We all need a reminder like that, now and then. I got mine when Harry gave me _Fidelacchius,_ and it's a pleasure to pass it on."

"Good thing the bad guys can't listen in here," Dawn said with a smile. "They'd learn too much— after all, there's a chance that they don't know about Xander and Lash yet."

"I suspect that they'll know about Xander from the funeral," Michael corrected. "I'm sure that they were watching and listening, via magic or technology, there. And I believe that they can sense the swords from a certain distance, just as the Knights can sense the Denarians, though that distance is… rather uncomfortably short."

"Oh, hey," Dawn said, brightening, even as Molly said, "Ah-ha!"

They looked at each other, and Molly raised a closed right fist over her open left palm. Dawn matched her, and they played "rock-paper-scissors" for who talked first. Dawn won with scissors to Molly's paper, and grinned.

"Michael, will they be watching and listening tomorrow, when Harry and I get there?" Dawn asked. She looked back at Molly, saw in my former apprentice's grin that she'd asked exactly what Molly had been about to, and smiled smugly.

"I'm sure that they will." Michael got where Dawn was going, and smiled. "Ah, I see. That's when you plant your false information."

"Yep." Dawn buffed her nails on her shirt. "Now we just have to decide what information to plant, rehearse a time or two, and we're good."

"We don't want to try to provide too much, or they will not believe any of it," Sanya said, leaning forward. "Nicodemus is not stupid— so do not overdo it."

We talked about it for a few minutes, and decided to give them two pieces of information, one of which Sanya, Michael and Lash all agreed that they'd accept as a simple truth, even though we would be lying, and the other of which would be a truth that they would probably think was a lie— provided Dawn and I got our lines and delivery right.

"So you let them think that Molly and I are staying away, by lying and saying that we're working on a rescue," Carlos said slowly, a grin on his face, "and you convince them that Ebenezar McCoy is coming to back you up by saying he isn't, and telling the truth."

"That's about it," I agreed.

"No wonder you won so much when we played poker at Camp Kaboom, Harry." 'Los shook his head in admiration. "You bluff with _style,_ man!"

I laughed, and we finally moved on to stage two of the plan.

2:07 PM

Nicodemus was visibly looking nervous. It had been two or three minutes since he sent Belaziel out to look for Ebenezar McCoy, and he'd sent Rosanna out to help the lion-like Fallen when she'd come back from the tower only moments later— and neither of them had come back or reported in.

Deirdre, Nick's daughter (and lover, ew!) had come out of the hangar with an escort of four thugs, and waved them to positions around her father and I, but that didn't seem to be reassuring Nicodemus at all.

Deirdre stayed back from her father's side, so as not to crowd him while he was threatening me with a sword, I figured. She contented herself with glaring at me from behind and off to one side of her father. I noticed the glare— and gave her my best smile in response. Her glare intensified, and I just… kept smiling. I know that's irritating, I've had it done to me, so… an upset Deirdre was a thinking-less-clearly Deirdre. I'd take any edge I could get.

"What are you smiling about!" Nicodemus barked at me.

"Oh, let's see here," I drawled— and I held up a hand, started ticking off items on my fingers. "I'm smiling about; beating you at your own game and getting the girls out before you could kill them. Being more ready for this confrontation than you are. Being more confident of winning this confrontation than you are. Having done the supposedly impossible, and kicked the shadow of a fallen angel out of my head. Having made your daughter as paranoid as I've made you.

"Oh! And the thing I'm smiling about most, Nick?

"I'm smiling about having scared you so badly that you won't let yourself be left alone with me while you've got a sword and your fallen angel and your knowledge of magic— and I've got my magic, drastically reduced by having no focus items.

"That's enough to leave me grinning for _days,_ that last one!"

"Shut up!" Deirdre snarled from behind her father. "You just shut up, mortal! Or so help me, I'll start torturing you right here and now!"

Nicodemus said nothing— and I laughed aloud. "See, Nick? You aren't even telling her to shut up. I've got you so completely terrified that you're letting your daughter step on your authority!"

Deirdre took two long steps forward. "I said—"

"Enough, Deirdre," Nicodemus said, his voice low and angry. "Go help the others. Find McCoy."

"But, Father—"

"I said _go!"_ Nicodemus took a long, deep breath. "The wizard is no threat— and I can handle him even if he tries something."

"I… yes, Father."

Deirdre, tall, dark haired and pretty, turned and walked away, shifting to her medusa-like battle form as she went. Her legs switched to reverse-jointed one at a time, as she lifted them to take steps, and her bare feet became those of a panther or like big cat, claws clicking on the concrete as she walked. Her skin darkened to red, brighter than that of Rosanna's demonic form, but not by much. And finally, her dark hair became a mass of writhing metallic tentacles, each one flat and sharp, and capable of stretching to some scary lengths. I'd seen her virtually dice people with those tentacles, and they never failed to creep me out— so I was glad to see her go.

"So, Nick— what shall we talk about? Women? Magic? Me almost killing your ass? You failing to kill me every time you try? My dog scaring you stupid? Your sick, twisted relationship with your daughter? The fact that I was part of the team that captured your son when he and his buddies attacked the White Council's training camp for wardens a few days back? The fact that when Sanya comes—"

"What!" Nicodemus said, taking a long step towards me and raising his sword again. "What did you say about my son! How do you even know—"

He bit his words off then, and I just gave him my best "gotcha" smile.

"You are going to die, Dresden." Nicodemus came no closer, and I noticed a tiny tremor in the sword. "You are going to die slowly— I can make it take months, do you understand that! MONTHS! I will kill you so slowly that it will set a new standard for torture, so slowly that your name becomes an urban legend, and I will enjoy every… last… second of your death! Every second!"

"You think so, huh?" I drawled, a smirk on my face. I made a show of wiping my face— he'd managed to spray tiny drops of spittle on me from ten feet away— and added, "Hey, next time, can I have a towel?

"Look, Nick— there are a couple of holes in your plan, there."

"Oh, really? Tell me, Dresden, what do you think is wrong with that plan?"

"Mostly? My death curse." Nicodemus looked startled for a second, but he covered it up. I smiled as I went on. "Last time I died— and the rumors are true, I really did die— I didn't get to use it. I died too quickly.

"But while I was dead— and it did take a while to get back— I got to talk to some people who've used theirs, and they told me a lot about how to do it. I'm pretty sure that, even though I'm pretty young for a wizard? I'll be able to slap down a curse strong enough to fuck with even a fallen angel. My mom did one so strong that it messed with a powerful supernatural critter for… over thirty-five years, now, and it's still going strong.

"Oh, and one more thing; because I died and actually came back? Mom and some others— Aleron LaFortier, Simon Petrovich, Donald Morgan, some other wardens and wizards that I knew?

"They all seemed to think that, because I died and managed to come back, when I _do_ lay down my death curse… it will be more powerful than any since the original Merlin's was. Add in the tips they all gave me about purposing and phrasing, and… well, let's just say that I fully expect you're going to wish you'd never even heard my name, let alone met me. Even more than you already do, I mean."

Nicodemus just stared at me for a long, moment— and I kept right on smiling. He slowly raised his sword, and I tensed, ready to move, ready to try to dodge or deflect the strike—

—and from somewhere off behind another one of the hangars came a roar of mixed pain and fear.

Nicodemus spun around to face the sound, and so did the four thugs that Deirdre had left here to protect her father.

Mistake!

Even without my foci, I can toss around some magic, and I'm strong enough— normally— that it's pretty useful. Not against Nicodemus, probably, or any of the Fallen… but against their mute personal thugs? Oh, yeah.

I didn't want to use a lot of magic, though— I was operating at a penalty at the time, and didn't have much to play with— so I tried for efficiency.

I made a fist of my right hand, pointed it at the knee of the nearest thug, gathered my will, and snarled, "Forzaré!"

Invisible force lanced out and broke the man's knee. He fell to the ground with a sort of grunt of pain— the thugs all had their tongues removed for some insane reason, which really usually made things easier for me— and Nicodemus spun around.

He was too slow— I got a second of the thugs with the same trick, and while my aim was off, I still broke the man's tibia, and he still fell to the ground, unable to come at me.

Nicodemus didn't have that problem. He turned towards me with a glare that spoke volumes about how very numbered my minutes on this earth were, and I raised my fist, popped my index and middle fingers out to point at him and snapped "Fuego!"

A fan of fire swept towards him, and Nicodemus skipped backwards, turning his back to me and wrapping his arms across the back of his neck and head.

That didn't keep his shirt from catching on fire.

Nicodemus flailed around for a moment, even as the fallen angel that was his shadow raised up and interposed itself between me and him.

That was fine. There were still two healthy thugs, both of them coming at me.

The first thug I hit in the leg with a bolt of force, and my aim was good— I took out his knee.

The other one, though, got close to me, too close for spell work, and he got off a good punch right to the bandage over my still-healing wound from the last Denarian I'd faced in combat. That did me no good at all— but I managed to fight past the pain far enough to come up out of the crouch that the pain caused me to fall into and ram the back of my head into the henchman's chin, which dazed him (and gave me a headache, but hey!). While thug-boy was dazed and Nicodemus was tearing off his burning shirt, I grabbed the back of the thug's head— and kneed him solidly in the face. The thug went down, unconscious and bleeding from both nose and mouth.

Nicodemus turned to face me as his shadow dwindled back to his feet. He was bare-chested now, which had been the whole point of the exercise, and I could see the Barabbas noose, the one thing that could kill him while he wore it, hanging on his chest like a dingy western string-tie.

Nicodemus raised his sword to point at my chest again, and as he opened his mouth to make some threat or another, a scream came from somewhere behind the hangar we were nearest.

"FATHER! HELP M—"

The scream became just a shriek of pain, then— and Nicodemus seemed to go mad with fury.

"YOU!" he snarled, his eyes going cold with hatred, and his sword suddenly snapping into line with my chest. "THIS IS YOUR FAULT! DAMN YOU, DRESDEN!"

I laughed and nodded. "Yes," I said around another laugh. "Yes, it is my fault, Nicky.

"What's it feel like, being on the short end of the ambush, you son of a bitch!"

He didn't answer me with words. Instead, he moved, and he was fast, so damned fast that I didn't have time to do more than raise one hand as his sword flashed towards my neck.

I felt a flare of pain as the blade passed through my fingers, an even worse pain as it bit into my neck—

—and everything went black.


	31. Chapter 31

_The night before:_

We talked for almost an hour before Molly had the thought that eventually led us to the answer for the problem of keeping me alive.

"This is ridiculous," Murphy sighed after exhausting her own ideas. "Why the hell did Nicodemus have to be so smart as to insist you be stripped down, Harry? Why couldn't he have just said, 'No staff, no duster, no blasting rod.' Then maybe we could get you past this."

"Oh!" Molly said, perking up. "Wait— that's it."

"What's it?" Buffy asked, leaning forward eagerly. She hadn't been able to contribute much, and that wasn't easy for her, so she was ready to hear anything positive.

"Harry, when the Summer Faeries were after you that one November?" Molly said, grinning. "Remember how you lost them? The second time, I mean?"

"Sure, I gave Thomas a charm that made him look like me, and he put on my coat and took my staff, went out and led the hunters— sounded like redcaps to me— on a merry chase." I looked at Molly and raised an eyebrow. "Nicodemus wants me dead, Molly— I can't ask anyone to do that for me, not this time."

"Right!" Molly said, and dimpled. "But if we give the charm to Daniel, Nicodemus can't hurt him! The protection from normal crime extends to the house, but we kids? Nicodemus can't do jack to us while we're a part of the household, and Daniel's never moved out!"

"I don't think—" I started.

"I'm willing, Harry," Daniel said, standing. (Like Molly, he was a little too old to feel comfortable with calling me 'Uncle Harry.') "Surely you and the others can get in and handle things before it goes bad."

"It won't work." Lash sighed. "Daniel, the protections on you would prevent any enchantment that places you in danger from ever kicking in."

"Really?" Molly looked crestfallen. Lash nodded sadly, and Molly flopped back in her chair. "Crap."

"Thanks, Daniel," I said, and gave him a somber little bow of the head. "Means a lot that you were willing to do it."

"I wish I could have done it." The young man sighed. "Look, what about— I don't know, animating a mannequin and giving it the charm? Would that work?"

"I'm afraid not," Lash and Carlos said at the same time. Carlos continued at a nod from Lash. "It would be transparent to any enchantment involving the senses, even a simple thing like the Sight we wizards have— so I'm really sure that a Fallen Angel would spot it."

I sat bolt upright as the discussion led me to a possible answer. "Unless, maybe, we made a full on construct, a— a golem, for lack of a better word— and made it seem alive."

"I don't think we can make something not-alive seem alive enough to fool a Denarian, Harry," Molly said, trying not to sound hopeful.

"Lash?" I asked, turning to her. "Could we? Is there anything up your sleeve that would help?"

"The idea of a construct along the lines of a golem is doable," Lash said, her voice slow and thoughtful. "But making it good enough to fool the Fallen into believing it's you…? I don't think we can do _that_."

Suddenly, Michael laughed and said, "No, Lash, I think it might be something that can be done!

"Harry… Soulfire!"

I sucked in a deep breath, and I thought about it. The archangel Uriel had given me the power of Soulfire after I'd successfully resisted Lash for so long (and, now that I thought about it, maybe more for setting her free and helping her _become_ Lash). It wasn't a replacement for the Hellfire she'd given me access too, because it worked the other way; Hellfire made destructive magics more powerful, while Soulfire made magics that created things more powerful, made them last longer, made them stronger— and, as I'd seen when creating an illusion of Murphy and an FBI agent while fighting the Red Court… it made them more _realistic_.

There was a moment of silence, and I looked at Lash and raised an eyebrow.

"I… it might work, Harry, Michael— but there would be a cost to Harry." She shook her head. "I don't think—"

"I'll pay it." I didn't shout it, I didn't snarl it— but it shut everyone up. "I'd pay it for Hope, for any of Michael's kids— hell's bells, for _any_ kid, Lash— but they've got _my Maggie_.

"I'll pay it, and I'll smile about the bargain-basement price."

"I don't think you understand what this will take, Harry," Lash said, her tone low. "To create the right sort of feel, the feel of you, it will take—"

"Oh, please." I rolled my eyes. "Come on Lash, give me _some_ credit. I know exactly what it will take. The only question I can't answer is 'how much will it take?' Will it cripple me? Make it so that I can't fight?"

Lash closed her eyes, and I could see that they were moving back and forth under her eyelids, like she was reading something, or watching something. After most of a minute, she opened her eyes, and said, "If we use the right materials for the construct, Harry— and there is plenty of what we need here— then… no. You will still be able to function. I can help, can… well, you know."

"Yeah," I sighed. "I know."

I looked around at the others. "Okay. We table this for the moment, because we know what to do there. So, once I'm in, and it gets ugly… what's the next move?

"Nicodemus— he's mine, until and unless I go down and don't get back up. In fact, if this works how it should, killing him will be… pretty easy."

"Choking isn't that easy, or that fast, Harry," Buffy cautioned me.

"I know, Buffy," I said, and gave her my most predatory smile. "But that's okay— there's more than one way to skin a cat."

"Well," Molly said, looking thoughtful. "How about a little bit of distraction? I mean— well, I know that most Nevernever doorways work differently for different people, but the stuff your necklace gives you? Doesn't seem like it works like that."

"There are… different sorts of gateways to the Nevernever, Molly," I told her. "The ones that can lead two different people to two different places, even if they start at exactly the same place? Most of those are spontaneous gates. Just opening a gate in mid-air would lead to four different places if you, Carlos, Lash and I all did it from exactly the same point, because our wants and expectations are different.

"But— well, the entrance to the Ways here in Chicago, the one you've both used to go to Edinburgh from here? That's a stable gate because it's a part of a stable piece of landscape. Same with those Mom found and passed on to me— stable gates. I can take you to them, leave you there, and you can open them to exactly where Mom says."

"And I can teach you to make a peephole," Lash said, a slow grin spreading across her face. "Since time can behave differently, I can show you how to make a peephole from the Nevernever to your destination— I'm guessing the airport?"

"Oh, yeah," I said, and grinned. I looked over at my former apprentice and said, "What sort of distraction did you have in mind, Molly?"

"Depends on who's with Nicodemus." She tilted her head thoughtfully, then said, "Doesn't he usually have his daughter with him?"

"Every time we have encountered him, he has." Sanya smiled a wolfish smile and looked at Michael. "You have encountered him once more than I, Michael. Was Deirdre with him then?"

"She was." Michael shuddered, and a look of distaste crossed his face like a shadow. "They have a… very unhealthy relationship."

"Okay, so, I do a woman screaming 'help me dad,' or something," Molly said, matching Sanya's smile. "And if Xander, Sanya and Lash are waiting in the Nevernever, then they can go prowling about with intent to kill Denarians."

"To offer Denarians a chance to redeem themselves, then kill them if necessary," Xander corrected gently.

"Sorry," Molly said. She looked at her father with a look that spoke volumes about her lack of interest in redeeming those who had taken up one of the Blackened Denarii. "You play it that way, Knights. I know that you have to.

"But I'm not playing their games. They've come after my family and my friends one time too often.

"I'm all out of forgiveness, where those monsters are concerned."

"Molly—" Michael said, his voice grave.

"No." Molly shook her head gently. "We all have to walk our own paths, Daddy. I chose to accept the warden's cloak. That makes ending the sort of threat the Denarians represent my responsibility— and doing so according to the policies of the White Council.

"Every last one of those things has broken at least two of the Laws of Magic that I know of— and that makes them subject to execution.

"That's how it works. That's how it goes.

"That was _their choice_."

For a moment, Michael looked at Molly with something in his eyes that looked like regret— then he smiled a sad-but-proud smile and nodded. "All right. You're right.

"But sometimes I wish you hadn't grown up yet, Molly."

"Me, too, Daddy."

After a moment of silence, Molly shook herself and picked up the conversation where it had left off.

"So anyway, the Knights are in the Nevernever, waiting to go out and start working on the Denarian problem, I add some distractions… we win, we come home, tuck Harry into bed and have a party when he's recovered."

"I will have to be with Harry, not in the Nevernever, I think." Lash quirked a smile my way. "Well, after I teleport to the airport and fetch the girls home, anyway. The construct we're going to make— we can't… 'program' it, so to speak. It will have to be directly controlled by Harry, and the spells for that sort of control are… delicate. I should be here to make sure things run smoothly."

"We will manage to make things difficult for the Denarians without you, for a while at least, Xander and I," Sanya said, grinning a hard grin. "He is very good, as you saw at the warehouse— much better than I was in my first year of bearing _Esperacchius,_ I admit freely."

"That's mostly thanks to Buffy." Xander tossed a little salute her way. "She taught me a lot about fighting, and more about _thinking_ about fighting."

"Flatterer." Buffy smiled at her oldest friend and made a little rolling motion with her right hand. "Keep it coming."

People laughed, and we settled down to rounding out the plan for taking back Hope and Maggie— and ending Nicodemus. If we could get any of the other Denaraians that were sure to be there, that would be a bonus— but I'd had enough of Nicodemus and his terror tactics. I was going to kill him— period!

The rest was just following through on the plans. Dawn got Xander to take her out to buy extra car sun-shades for portable teleport circles, Michael used his computer to get the extremely accurate set of maps that Lash would need to have to pre-plan the teleports, and Lash, Molly and Buffy went out to make a basic body construct for the golem we were going to use to fool Nicodemus into thinking was me. If I could piss him off that much (and this _is_ me we're talking about, I'm _good_ at pissing people off), we might even fool him into thinking he'd killed me.

The more accurate the base model was to start with, the better. It would be easier to make it more exactly resemble me animated and alive-seeming if it started off looking more like me before that— so I ended up going outside in just a pair of running shorts (as I'd be dressed the next day for the exchange) and letting Molly, who it turned out had a gift for sculpting, work from a live model.

Buffy dug the hole they needed to get to clay— not hard to find, there's clay pretty much everywhere in the Midwest, if you go deep enough. For Buffy, the shoveling wasn't even that much work. Then they did the basic modeling before I got called out.

About the time they finished, the sun was coming up. I had put Xander to work on finding a car for this purpose (I wasn't about to give Nicodemus a chance to steal or blow up Captain Midnight), and I cheerfully gave him the combination to the safe in my office, where I kept several thousand dollars in cash for emergencies, in order to go buy the one he'd found. (If you can't trust a man who's carrying one of the Swords of the Cross, who can you trust?)

I napped briefly on the family room floor and Buffy joined me there, snuggled up to my side (the one without the hole in it). I slept better for having her there, I know.

We slept for three hours, got up at ten— and Lash was ready to do the ugly part of making the construct we'd built so good that it would fool even Nicodemus and any other Denarians who would be there. We hoped, anyway.

When Buffy found out what that last step was, she stared in shock at me for a moment, then looked at Lash, who looked pale and strained at the thought of doing it.

"Harry… are you sure that it has to be that?" Buffy asked. "Couldn't you just… use hair and fingernail clippings? You always take care to destroy those so people can't use them to get at you, won't they make a good enough… what, resonance? Resonance between you and the clone-golem-thing?"

"Against a lesser foe, maybe." I shook my head. "These aren't lesser foes. They're scary powerful, and I can't risk anything less than the best we can do, Buffy. Not with the girls' lives on the line.

"Besides, given my wizard's healing factor… maybe it'll grow back."

Buffy stared up at me for a moment, then nodded slowly. She turned to Lash and said, "And you can heal him enough that he can fight after that? You're sure?"

"I can." Lash looked a little pale and shaky still, but she nodded. "The healing I did for him yesterday is more slow, more careful, because his whole body is involved. Thalariel's poison affects all of Harry's system, that's why I can only speed things some.

"A wound like this, especially if it is a clean wound… I can heal it enough that it will be… like the flesh has closed over the wound, has been closed for maybe a week. It will be enough that Harry can fight without worrying about the injury.

"I still wish you didn't have to disobey Wizard Listens-to-Wind, Harry— and I want your promise that as soon as this is over, you will rest and heal until he says you are well."

"I'll try." I sighed and ran a hand over my face. "Honest, I will— I wanted to this time, but the damned bad guys never cooperate."

Lash pursed her lips and shook her head. "I suppose that will have to do.

"All right, let's get this over with. Outside— less mess, and I don't want to disturb any of the others."

"Wait." Buffy looked at Lash, then jerked her head sideways at me. "Lash, I can see from your face that you really don't want to do this— so let me."

"Buffy, I… I can't ask you to do that, you love him!"

"So do you, silly." Buffy smiled a little. "I'm more used to… blood and mess, and if I do it, you can start the healing on him that much faster."

Lash hesitated for a long moment, then let out a sigh and gave a nod. "All right. Yes. If you're sure…?"

"It has to be done," Buffy said, nodding. "For Hope, for Maggie… it's _necessary_. Well, I've always been pretty good at doing what's necessary.

"Besides— no offense, but I can probably do it faster, and maybe with less pain than you can."

Lash nodded, Buffy went and got her Scythe, and we went outside. Once we were standing next to the clay statue of me that lay on the ground (was my nose really that sharp?), Lash told us to wait for a minute, and she slowly and carefully used a buck knife she took from a pocket to cut a hole in the statue's chest, starting a little way into the bottom of the sternum, and moving about three inches down. She made the hole maybe five or six inches deep, and set aside the wedge of clay that she'd cut out after cutting a bit off of the bottom to make room for what would be going into the hole.

"Hey," Buffy said, and nudged me. I looked at her and she smiled at me, a smile packed with a lot of wattage, and said, "You need to know, Harry Dresden, that I'm really impressed at how far you'll go to save the girls— and that I believe that you'd do it if they were complete strangers.

"That kinda thing? It's a lot of why I went and fell in love with you, Wizard Dresden."

"Thank you, Slayer Sinclair," I said, and bent to kiss her.

She made a _project_ of that kiss, held my left hand in her right while she kissed me (she had the Scythe in her left hand), and moved up on her toes to make the kiss warmer, deeper—

—and I felt a sudden pain in my left hand, quick and sharp, like a bad shaving nick. I heard the Scythe hit the turf, then I felt pressure as Buffy's left hand clamped on mine, even as her right moved away from my hand, extended towards Lash, holding a little cylinder of some sor—

Oh. No, she was handing Lash my left little finger, the piece of me that would enable Lash and I, between her knowledge and my Soulfire, to make that golem come to life and be real enough to fool Nicky and the Nickelheads— we hoped.

Wait a second, she'd just—

"Ow!" I said, as the realization that I was now _missing_ _my finger_ hit me, and made the pain sharper.

Lash dropped the finger in the hole in the construct's chest, reached for the lump of clay she'd dug out, then stopped, jumped to her feet, leaped to my side, reached up and pulled three of four strands of hair out by the roots, hopped back, shoved the hairs in after my finger, then shoved the plug back in, smoothed the clay down quickly, and let out a big sigh.

Then she came over and started working on my hand. Less than fifteen seconds after she added her hand to Buffy's on my left hand, the pain dwindled away to nothing. Ten minutes after that, it looked as though my finger had been amputated weeks before, and was newly healed.

Finally, Lash let go, and Buffy, who'd been watching my face the whole time, holding my good hand and leaning against me, looked up and said, "Sorry, Harry— it was just the best way I could think of to distract you from the pain."

"It's all right," I said, and grinned at her. "I gotta admit, as distractions go, it was pretty much the best one ever." I looked at my hand, healed over, but looking a little lopsided with my pinkie no longer in its accustomed place. "Besides, I think doing it with the Scythe probably hurt a lot less than most sharp instruments would have."

Buffy looked relieved that I wasn't upset or angry, and kissed me again. Better than getting a lollipop at the doctor's office, better by a long shot.

"All right," I said, once Buffy stopped kissing me. "Lash? Let's you and me go over the spells for animating and controlling Golem Harry, shall we? I want them down pat before the casting."

"Of course." Lash still looked a little pale, but her color was coming back up. "Your hand… it doesn't hurt?"

"Not a bit," I said. I rubbed my head and added, "Wish the rest of me felt that good. Better by far than when you did what you could yesterday, but still… not exactly peak, here.

"Hey— will I be able to do magic through Golem Harry, Lash?"

"Yes, of course," Lash replied. "It will be more costly than usual, though— like operating through a weak threshold. You'll require twice the energy for the results you're used to, I think, maybe a bit more or less."

"Right." I nodded seriously. "Judicious use of magic required. No problem.

"Okay, let's get to work."

2:12 PM

—and everything went black.

"Ow," I said conversationally. I reached for the paper taped to my closed eyelids and hesitated. "Lash? I'm dead at the airport. Can I take this junk off, now?"

"Yes, quickly," Lash replied. "So that you may see how you have wrought, before we go."

I pulled the paper eyes— each treated with a dot of the clay that Lash had removed from Golem Harry to make room for my finger to create a link between me and the golem me so I could see. As I did that, then removed the paper nose taped over my own, and the paper lips and ears, to cover all the important senses and my ability to speak through the golem, Buffy started pulling off the clay-smeared paper that covered the rest of my body.

I finished getting the paper off of my head, opened my eyes— and saw Maggie in front of me, staring up at me in amazement and a little amusement, while Hope stood with her brothers, sisters and father in a group nearby. Daniel, even though he plainly wanted to hug his sister, maintained watch over the big section of Grant Park that we'd used for the work, since it gave us lots of room for me to move in, simulating the space of the Sollitt Municipal Airport well enough for our needs. Then Dawn stepped up, Mouse walking beside her, took the sword Daniel held and turned to watch the way he had been, even as she gave him a shove towards his family. Daniel gave a protest, but he was laughing as he did so, and when Dawn ignored him, he joined in the group hug that was going on. Mouse moved to stand near Dawn, looking the other way.

I got the last of the paper off of my face, knelt, and grabbed Maggie as she charged into my arms, hugged her as hard as I dared, reveled in her return hug.

"I was scared," Maggie whispered against my neck. "Almost as scared as when the other monsters took me— but not _as_ scared, because this time, I _knew_ you'd come for me."

That made me smile so much that my cheeks burned. "Darn straight. I'll always come for you Maggie, so long as I'm around."

"I know, Daddy," Maggie said, and kissed me. "Buffy and Lash say you have work to do yet, monsters to stop. You better go— but you be careful!"

"I will." I hugged my daughter, kissed her cheek, said it again. "I will be careful, Maggie."

She stepped back as Michael and his family came over, let herself be absorbed by that group as Lash put a car-shade teleport circle on the ground.

"Thank you, Uncle Harry!" Hope called as I joined Lash and Buffy on the circle. "I'll hug you when you get back!"

"Deal!" I called back. "And you're welcome!"

Lash put up a veil around the three of us— hers were as good as Molly's and that's saying a lot— then said the word that activated the teleport circle.

One flash of light later, we were standing next to the puke-green Pinto that Dawn and Golem Harry had come to the airport in.

No one seemed to have noticed the flash of light. Nicodemus was staring back and forth between "my" body on the ground and the general direction that Molly's faked cry for Deirdre's father had come from.

"How long will Golem Harry remain a human corpse?" Lash asked as we three started moving slowly across the gravel part of the entrance to the airport, trying to stir up as little dust as possible.

"I packed in a lot of Soulfire with the rest of the magic," I muttered, carefully staying close to Lash, even as Buffy did on the other side of my newest friend. "I'd say most of an hour if it was a fire or force spell— so figure ten more minutes, maybe? Emulating life, even if it's only formerly alive, is way more complicated."

"Damn, Harry, how much of your soul did you use!" Buffy asked, sounding worried.

I chuckled softly. "A lot— but seeing Maggie and Hope okay, hugging Maggie, knowing she's safe? I think it's probably replenished already, or close to it.

"I'm fine, Buffy."

"He's telling the truth," Lash said, and smiled at Buffy. "He's fine, Buffy."

"Okay, well," Buffy said, leaning backwards a little to smile at me around Lash's head. "Just to be sure, I think I'll kiss him and hang on for a while after this is all over."

"Good idea," Lash said. "Now— ssh, we're getting close."

We had kept moving, and Lash's veil was proof against sound, but still— no reason to push it. Now that we had left the gravel, would could walk at a normal pace.

Of course, there was one more key event that had to happen before I could actually finish Nicodemus. The Knights of the Cross, since they were helping me, had to be allowed one more chance at convincing Nicodemus to repent. I didn't want to give it to them— but I had no choice, not if I wanted their help, and since I couldn't have done any of this without Lash….

Even as we edged into the hangar where Nicodemus had started pacing in circles around "my" body (looking at the headless body that looked so much like me was _creepy,_ let me tell you), ignoring the wounded thugs who had dragged themselves off to one side of the hangar and were working on giving each other first aid with a single small kit— the rest of the Knights arrived.

Molly had veiled them, brought them close, while Carlos ran around out on the field, causing trouble, dodging Rosanna or fighting her— I wasn't sure about the other two. I had no idea where Deirdre was if she'd really been screaming or if that had been Molly's planned distraction, and I didn't know if the roar of anger and pain I'd heard through Golem Harry was a sign that Belaziel was dead, wounded, or just really frustrated.

Now, I saw Xander and Sanya appear out of thin air between Nicodemus and the hangar doors, swords drawn and burning white, saw the Denarian sneer— but for just a second, I saw a flash of something else, and I was pretty sure that it was fear.

Lash squeezed my hand, and I put up my own veil— not anywhere as good as hers, but, given that Nicodemus had other worries, good enough. She stepped out of hiding, appeared in his peripheral vision, and drew _Fidelacchius_.

As the senior Knight, Sanya spoke for them, or at least spoke first.

"Nicodemus," Sanya said, his voice firm, but not hard. "This is your last chance, your very last chance, to give up the coin, to forsake the power Anduriel gives you… to repent and ask forgiveness."

Nicodemus laughed aloud. "You can't be serious! Boy, you are not a patch on Shiro, and these… these children can't be a patch on you!

"And since I mention patches, by the way, Patch— if you're playing up your resemblance to Nicholas Brendan as some sort of attempt to intimidate me… it won't work. Actors don't intimidate me."

Xander didn't answer, just shrugged a little and said, "Sanya's right. This really is your last chance, Nicodemus. We aren't the only ones who want you dead, you know— and we have no right to stop the one who wants you dead more than most."

"We are obligated to offer a last chance to repent." Lash performed a blinding fast series of moves with her sword that actually made Nicodemus blink. "We are not obligated to protect you from the man who wants you dead, nor will we, after what you have done and tried to do to the Carpenter family."

"You can't be serious!" Nick was actually chortling, now. "With Dresden dead, I can only assume that you speak of Michael Carpenter— and we all know he is a broken man, incapable of fighting a child, much less me."

"It is not Michael that we speak of, Nicodemus," Sanya said, tacitly ignoring the insult to Michael. "We will have your answer now— will you repent? Will you give up your coin?"

Nicodemus answered by spitting on the floor.

"Very well." Sanya started backing off slowly, motioned Xander and Lash to match him. They did— and again, I saw a flash of fear on Nicodemus's face as he tried to figure out what was happening— and couldn't.

Once the three Knights of the Cross had backed off sufficiently, I dropped the visual component of my veil. Buffy and I were behind Nicodemus, and I didn't give him any warning— because to be really, totally honest, the man scared the shit out of me, even with my knowledge of how to kill him.

I had my staff in my left hand, and didn't seem to have any trouble holding or guiding it, despite being a finger short. I motioned for Buffy to stay where she was, and I moved towards Nick's back silently, the sound component of my veil still up.

When I was right behind Nicodemus, I simultaneously reached over his shoulder with my right hand and dropped my audio veil.

As my right fist closed around the Barabbas noose, wrapped the length that hung free around my hand and jerked it out sideways, I snarled, "Hey, Nick! I guess I'm not dead this time, either!"

I felt Nicodemus panic, heard the clang as he dropped the saber he held, and decided that I had time for one more line before I ended him.

"You really should have learned your lesson the last time, asshole;" I near-shouted in his ear as I moved backwards and to my right to keep up the tension on the noose, "you don't fuck with my friends and live to tell the story, you son of a bitch!"

With that, I placed the base of my staff against the back of Nicodemus's neck, right above the Barabbas noose, gathered up my will, fueled by my anger at the things this man had done to my friends, to me and to my little girl, and I bellowed, "FORZARÉ!"

I had the Barabbas noose tightly. Nicodemus's neck and head jerked forward with such speed and force that I felt a monstrous pain in my right hand and arm as I resisted that force—

—and, as happens in a properly done hanging, the sudden, sharp increase of tension on a neck with nowhere to go broke Nicodemus's neck as neatly as a snapped twig.

He spasmed, once, and only once— then two thousand years of age caught up with Nicodemus's body all at once, and the dust that had been my most-feared enemy fell to the floor, even as a single silver coin, about the size of a nickel, and corroded black except where the silver remained corrosion-free in the sigil that was the name of the Fallen in the coin, fell to the floor.

I was left standing there with the Barabbas noose wrapped partly around my hand.

"_**NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!"**_

The scream came from the hangar doors. Deirdre had come around the corner just in time to see her father turn to dust.

Uh-oh.

The Denarian moved like greased lightning, sprinting across the floor on her tentacle hair, like Doctor Octopus sometimes does on his arms in the Spider-man comics, and coming straight at me. I barely had time to take a step back before one of her tentacles came at me with the speed and force of a crossbow bolt—

—and stopped less than four inches from my face as it glanced off the Scythe that Buffy had interposed between it and my face.

" 'Scuse me, honey," Buffy said, and shoved me back gently. "I think I can help the Knights, here. You stay clear."

"Uh, right," I said, and nodded. I watched as Sanya, Xander and Lash moved in to circle Deirdre, making room for Buffy between Lash and Xander.

"Deirdre, it isn't too late to—" Sanya began— then ducked as two tentacles came at his neck in a scissor move. I'm not sure, but I think he lost a little hair to the move— but that was all.

"SHUT UP!" Deirdre screamed, and I could hear the tears in her voice.

(I actually had to harden myself to those tears as she continued, because part of me wanted to try to comfort her. I guess maybe it's an orphan thing.)

"I'LL KILL YOU ALL, AND DRESDEN LAST! DRESDEN SLOWEST! DRESDEN WILL DIE IN AG—"

Sanya slashed up with _Esperacchius_ and actually cut the two tentacles that Deirdre had swung at him off at about half their length. Deirdre cried out in pain, which took a second to make sense to me— but of course if she could move them, they had nerves, so could feel pain.

Deirdre was fighting in a blind rage. Three Knights of the Cross and the slayer stood against her.

She didn't last long.

Lash administered the final blow, drove the chisel tip of _Fidelacchius_ into Deirdre's chest, then jerked the blade out sideways, obviously doing critical damage to the monster-woman's heart as it sliced out of her chest, from the gout of blood.

Like her father's before her, Deirdre's body rotted away to nothing very quickly, though first it reverted to human, the ectoplasm that had made up the extra mass of her combat-form dissolving away with no magic to hold it together.

Sanya gathered up the coin that had been Deirdre's, then moved over and picked up the coin of Anduriel, the one that had belonged to Nicodemus. He used the blessed handkerchiefs that the Knights carried specifically for that purpose, then looked around.

"Where are Karrin, Molly and Warden Ramirez?" he asked— and a moment later, we heard this high, drilling shriek that answered the question for us. It was a Molly-special, that sonic attack.

We found them battling about a dozen of the mute cultists that worked for the Denarians, and they looked to be on the losing end. Carlos had a bullet wound in his left leg, a through-and-through that seemed to be leaking blood, but not dangerously fast. Molly was clutching her side, and I could see the blood that stained her heavy denim blouse and the heavier canvas cargo pants that she wore. Murphy was watching their backs with her boxy little machine gun ready, unwilling to shoot a normal human while there was another choice.

I started to gather up my will for a bowl-them-over spell, but Carlos wasn't done yet; he did something I'd seen him do before, but this time on a much bigger scale.

Carlos visibly collected himself, gathered in his will, and pointed his hands at the feet of some of the cultists, who were, at least, in a fairly easy-to-target double line. Green energy flew from his hands, hit the pavement in front of two different cultists— and spread out rapidly, racing under them, dissolving the concrete pavement they stood on down to a dust so fine that it was almost literally frictionless.

The dustbowl was deep, and the thugs were left with a choice of holding on to their weapons— or managing to climb out of the pit.

They chose to live, to my surprise. Then again, they probably didn't know that Nicodemus was dead, not yet. Anyway, as they crawled out of the pit, Lash hit them with a sleep spell that was at least faster than mine, if not better. I didn't use one often enough to be able to do it really quick, but I did get a couple of them before she got the last one.

It seemed that Carlos, Molly and Murphy had killed Belaziel— Murphy had his coin wrapped up in a bandanna— but that Rosanna had fled after ordering the thugs to attack my friends. I figured she knew that Nicodemus was dead (and doubted that she cared at all about Deirdre), or she wouldn't have dared to flee.

I was so tired that I could barely stand, by the time it was all over. I had more aches than I had places to _have_ aches, so they were doubling up on me here and there. I watched dully as Sanya and Murphy produced a bunch of those wire-reinforced zip-tie things that the cops use instead of handcuffs, when there are a lot of perps. Sanya did their hands, Murphy came along after and did their feet. Then Murphy walked well away from us wizards, produced a cheap, disposable cell phone and called the cops. When she was done, Murphy looked at Carlos and said, "Hey, hotshot— say pull."

Carlos grinned hugely and did so. Murphy tossed the phone in the air— and Carlos disintegrated it with a little blast of his entropy magic.

After that, Lash produced teleport circles, and we all went back to the Carpenter home. Michael and the others were just arriving home from Grant Park, and amidst all the hubbub of taking care of Carlos, Molly and Xander (who'd been slashed across the chest by Deirdre, and I hadn't even noticed, I was so out of it), I just sank to the grass, put an arm around Buffy when she sat next to me.

A second later, Maggie found me, and Mouse right behind her, and I soon had Buffy on one side, Mouse on the other, and Maggie in my lap.

I don't remember falling asleep— but I do remember that it was a relief to do so.


	32. Chapter 32

I woke up sometime after it got dark with my right hand and arm singing "the Battle Hymn of the Republic" in an off-key mezzo-soprano of pure, unadulterated pain.

I was in Michael's guest room again, but I wasn't alone in the small bed; Maggie, wearing a nightgown, was curled up on my left side, her head pillowed on my left arm. That… finding my little girl curled up against me, that actually made me forget the pain in my right arm for a minute.

Then I tried to turn over a little, so I could see Maggie better, and my right arm informed me in no uncertain terms that it just wasn't going to happen. I bit back a cry of pain, unwilling to wake my kid, and tried to relax back without making it worse.

Something beside the little bed shifted, and Mouse's shaggy head came into view as he sat up to see what was wrong with me. His head tilted back and forth a couple of times, then he got up and left the room, nosing the door open (it had been left cracked, probably for that specific purpose) and vanishing into the dimly lit hall.

A couple of minutes later, Mouse came back in with Buffy behind him. She came over to the bed, smiled at me, then looked at me more closely, looked at my arm— and drew in a sharp breath. "Oh, damn. Harry, your arm— I'll get Lash."

Buffy was gone before I could even answer. I tried to look at my own arm, but that just resulted in more pain, so I gave it up fast.

Lash came in just in front of Buffy a moment later, and she moved to the lamp on the little nightstand, angled the shade so as to reduce the chances of waking Maggie, and clicked it on. A moment later, she drew in a sharp hiss and said, "Lord of _Hosts,_ Harry, how much force did you hit Nicodemus with when you broke his neck!"

I thought about that for a moment, then mumbled, "Um, all of it?"

Buffy snorted a little, then shook her head. "Sorry— but you look like a kid caught with his hand in the cookie jar, Harry. All _sorts_ of guilty."

"Harry," Lash sighed, "I understand that Nicodemus frightened you— you're that sane, after all— but from the looks of your arm, you used enough force to flip a city bus end-over-end.

"It's purple and blue as far as I can see, even to the base of your neck. I suspect that you tore muscles, pulled everything in there, and maybe other things.

"Buffy, I hate to do it, but I need to work on him now, or this will get worse. Can you get Maggie to her own bed without waking her?"

Buffy managed it, eliciting only a tiny little sound from Maggie, who snuggled closer to Buffy, which made me and her both smile.

Then things got ugly for a while, as I was too damned tired and fuzz-brained to focus on any of the pain-blocking tricks that Lash had taught me back when she lived in my head.

Lash was able to ease the pain down some, eventually, and she strapped my arm along my side and across my stomach like it was in a sling. Dawn went to the brownstone and got my slightly-illicit medical kit, the one with the Tylenol with codeine in it. I managed to sleep, and I slept a long time.

The next couple of days? Really blurry. I was kept on a steady diet of Tylenol III, and occasionally, Buffy would show up to feed me, never letting me do it myself. Sanya stayed around for a few days, which was good— he helped me get to the bathroom when I needed to go, and he was strong enough and big enough that he could do it without hurting me.

(Sure, Buffy could've gotten me there— but her size would have made it more awkward, since she's a foot and a half shorter than me. It had been okay after my injuries from the warehouse, but this time… I couldn't use the arm not across her shoulders for support. Better to have Sanya around to help.)

The next time I had a clear head, I woke with my arm only hurting bad, instead of hurting like hell— and Michael was sitting in the room, next to the bed, reading a Tom Clancy novel.

"Hey," I said, and moved a little. "What's up, Michael?"

Michael tucked a bookmark in the book (he was where Molly had learned her wimpy reading habits from), turned to face me, and gave me a kind of… penetrating look.

"I wanted to ask you something," Michael said, his voice calm and non-accusatory. "I thought that, since Lash says you should be able to get by with ordinary painkillers now, you might be able to talk to me for a while."

I had a sneaking suspicion that I knew where this was going, and I sighed as I shifted a little, making it easier to turn my head towards him. "Sure, Michael— but could I have some ordinary painkillers before we start? My arm still thinks I'm an idiot for using as much force as I did on Nicodemus."

"Of course." Michael got me two extra-strength Tylenol and held a glass of Coke with a straw in it for me to take them. Once I'd done so, he looked at me somberly. "Amanda. She'll need training, and Molly says that she isn't allowed to do so, yet."

"No," I said with a nod. "You have to be a full member of the White Council for five years before you can take on an apprentice. Besides, I think Amanda's talents are going to lie closer to mine than Molly's, given what she did when Nick's thugs came after her and the other kids."

"Then you'll train her?" Michael asked, sounding almost pleased.

"If you'll permit it, yes," I said, nodding. "Of course, if you'd rather, Carlos could do it, but he's pretty far away— it could be awkward. But there is a warden I met, not so long ago, who uses water magic. She's in my area of responsibility, now— must've moved to Normal while I was dead— and I could ask her, if she has the time in."

"No, no," Michael said, and gave me a smile. "Harry, you did a fine job with Molly— I was actually hoping you'd train Amanda. Thank you for the offer, and I accept.

"But… Harry, why did Charity tell the others about the Laws of Magic? 'Just in case,' I know— but why did she think it might happen again? Is it… Harry, is my work as a Knight of the Cross why two of my daughters have this power?"

"No, Michael," I said, and looked up at the ceiling. "Michael… Maggie may not be a wizard, may not have any talent, ever, though… well, I think she might, because Susan… she was no wizard, but she did accept the truth of magic awfully easily, and she learned to use some, later. Add in the magical tattoos from the Order of St. Giles, and the chances go up, I think…. And of course, I am powerful, and I'm her father.

"But… Michael, the ability to wield magic, the power… look, you know about my family. My father was a stage magician, not a wizard. My mother, she was on the White Council….

"The power of magic… it most often runs through the mother's side of the family. Not always, but most often."

Michael didn't look angry, upset or puzzled at that revelation, but he did look thoughtful. After a long moment, he spoke.

"I see," Michael said, his voice calm. "So that person… that Gregor that nearly sacrificed Charity, he was doing so to… what, take her power for his own?"

"Yes," I said cautiously. "That's what she told me. That Gregor was about to sacrifice her, that you saved her from him and from the dragon Siriothrax, and she fell in love with you.

"Charity… she gave up the power for you, Michael— but the potential for it, it still existed in her bloodline."

"You learned of this… when you rescued Molly?" he asked gently.

"Yeah," I said, and sighed. "She asked me not to tell anyone, Michael, and specifically included you. I agreed, and… well, I kept my word.

"I hope you understand why I did it? And why I'm giving you this now?"

"You did it because you learned to see my wife in a new light during that case, and she learned the same of you," Michael said, a smile on his face. "You're giving it to me now because Amanda developing the power proves that it may happen again with Hope or Harry, and you know that I need to understand, to be ready."

"Uh, yeah." I blinked and looked at him more closely. "Molly hasn't been teaching you to read minds, has she?"

He chuckled, then outright laughed. "No, Harry. But you are my friend— and Charity was my wife. I know you both, and I saw how much more relaxed she became around you, how she… Harry, I knew there was more at work than just your putting your life on the line for Molly. I didn't know what it might be, but I knew it— and I was fine with it, even with not knowing about it. It didn't matter, then.

"It does now— and I thank you for understanding that, for explaining it to me."

"You're welcome," I said simply. It was Michael— I didn't need to say more.

"Hungry?" he asked.

"I could eat a horse." I thought about it, then corrected myself. "Heck, I could eat a dragon."

"I'll tell Buffy you're awake, she'll bring you something." He stood slowly, then said, "We can work out the details of Amanda's lessons once you're well— but thank you for accepting her as your apprentice, Harry."

"No problem at all."

Michael left the room, and I swear, cane and all, his steps seemed lighter than they had since Charity died. Maybe learning something about his wife, something he didn't know had somehow made it easier to deal with the pain…? Well, whatever it was, I was glad to have seen it.

Buffy fed me, Maggie came in to see me when she got home, seemed pleased that I was actually aware of her this time, not asleep or fogged by painkillers. The others all poked their heads in one at a time, except Carlos, who'd gone back to LA to take up his duties again.

"Harry, about Lash," Buffy said that evening, when she came by to tell me good night. (She was staying in the guest room in the basement, not sleeping in the chair in my sickroom, though apparently Michael and Lash had both had to insist. Love that lady!) "She's not going to try to have a job, and she'll probably be gone a lot, off doing her job as a Knight… but there's an empty apartment up on the fourth floor, and two empties on five. She likes staying with me, and I like having her there— but she's gonna need her own place sooner or later. Mostly because I think Dawn's almost worked up the nerve to ask her out, and I don't want them coming back to my place to neck, which, okay, they'd probably go to Dawn's, but Dawn might think it was funny to come to my place, and Lash doesn't know enough about that sort of thing to say no, I don't think."

I chuckled, winced as I jiggled my arm wrong, and said, "A good point. Offer her the choice of the one across from Xander or the one on five that Molly and I _aren't_ using as a lab. Tell her she can pay rent if she feels that she has too, but that I won't insist on it at all— I owe her my life, and I think… I think I owe her boss a favor or two _hundred_."

Buffy smiled, nodded, and bent over to kiss me. "I like how you think, Harry. I'll tell her before she and the others go home, so she can come up and thank you."

Buffy was right, Lash came by to thank me (and checked on my health while she was there), and insisted that she'd pay me rent out of the stipend she got specifically for that purpose from the Catholic church. Then she argued with me when I told her I wouldn't accept any more rent from her than I did from Buffy, Xander or Dawn. Silly woman.

The next day, I was allowed to go home, though under care. Then I got yelled at not long after I did go home, because Joseph Listens-to-Wind came by to see how I was doing— and discovered that I had disobeyed his orders about "bedrest" and "no strenuous activity" after he'd treated me for the Denarian poison I'd gotten while we were apprehending Charity's killer.

Buffy got him calmed down by telling him that Michael's youngest daughter and his foster-daughter had been kidnapped, and that the kidnappers were Knights of the Blackened Denarius, and there'd been no choice but to do as they said.

Then I paid him back for all he done for me by giving him the most trust I know how to give.

"Joseph," I said when he'd visibly calmed himself after hearing the short version of the story and started examining me. "Buffy… didn't tell you something. Don't be mad at her, she didn't tell you because it's not her secret to tell, but… Joseph, you've done more for me since I met you than any other wizard on the council except Ebenezar, and I trust you. So I'm going to tell you the rest of the truth that Buffy wouldn't, without asking me."

"I'm listening," he said as he looked over my arm, ran his hands through the air just above it as though sensing my injuries through them. (Which, being that he's a wizard, is probably the literal truth.)

"Michael's foster daughter, Maggie?" I licked my lips and waited until he paused in his examination and looked up at my face. "She's named for another Maggie. Margaret LaFey, later Margaret Dresden. Her mother… her mother knew my mother's name, and thought it would be appropriate, since… Maggie's my daughter.

"I had to go after her, Joseph, more than even just because she's a child, or my friend's child.

"I had to go after my daughter."

Joseph sat up straight, looked at me— and suddenly smiled. "Okay, Hoss Dresden— then I withdraw all lecturing.

"Man has to go after his child, or he's not a man.

"Also explains why Ebenezar took us all to Chichen Itza to help you get her back. Same rule applies to a man having to go after his great-grandchild."

I blinked. I stared. I forgot how badly my arm hurt, and I started to sit up, hissed in pain and fell back before I got any distance at all. "You… you were there? And… and you know…."

"I was there," Joseph said. "I was on the other side of Ebenezar from… the old one-eyed man when we arrived.

"And I know. Only I, I think, though it would not surprise me to find that Wizard Rashid knows, as well.

"I know it pained your grandfather no end when his daughter, your mother, died in childbirth, and he did not know how to find you. Later… he told me, after you'd completed your time with him. Needed someone to know, to be on your side, if something happened to him.

"And I know, too, that your lady is a member of the Grey Council, now— so I am not spilling any secrets but my own, and that only in payment for yours.

"Thank you, Hoss."

"You're welcome, sir— and thank you, too," I said, and just lay there while he did things that made me hurt less, lay there and thought about how damned lucky I was to have that old man's respect and regard.

The following Friday, I felt infinitely better. Not a hundred percent, but like a human being, maybe even like a wizard. My arm, now merely a mass of ordinary bruises with a few patches of ordinarily-colored flesh visible between the purple, brown and blue, was in an ordinary sling, and I was allowed to go and sit in my office and pretend to work that day. Buffy was released from nursing duty and went back to being a private eye. Murphy had a big case going, something involving embezzlement from a local (but still big and money-making) restaurant chain, so I actually interviewed a client that day, accepted his case (a lost box containing his father's Medal of Honor, lost in a local move). I took Dawn, now officially a part of Dresden Investigation Services, with me to act as my spare hands and found the man's box and his father's medal in less than an hour. He paid my one-day minimum with a smile and gushed thanks, and I returned to the office to find Buffy working on some phone-work for Murphy.

That evening I decided that I felt like going out, and asked Buffy to dinner. My arm worked well enough to let me eat without assistance (or making a mess), so I thought it was about time I bought my lady dinner. We went out to my favorite steakhouse, had a great meal, and sat and talked for more than an hour afterwards.

After that, we went to McAnally's pub, where I finally felt comfortable going again, now that I'd come back from the dead to the magical community— in kind of a loud and violent fashion, which, being me, was the _only_ way to do it.

Mac was actually impressed when he realized who Buffy really was, which took almost no time at all. He didn't show it much, not to someone who didn't know him— but Buffy's really alert, and when Mac brought her a refill of her lemonade (she wasn't much of a drinker, and I didn't blame her after the whole "cave-slayer" thing when she was in college) without being prompted, she noticed the whole bar noticing.

"Um, what just happened?" Buffy asked me quietly after Mac returned to his station behind the bar and people had started talking again.

"Mac knows who you are, and he just expressed his respect and admiration for you in a fashion that all the regulars recognize," I said with a smile. At her puzzled look, I added, "How many people have you seen him serve at their tables tonight?"

Buffy thought about it for a moment, then said, "Oh. Everyone goes up to the bar for their drinks and food. So him bringing me a refill… neat. I'll have to thank him before we leave."

She made a point of getting up to get her own refill the next time, and she thanked Mac quietly. He actually smiled at her, which told me even more about how pleased he was to have her in his pub— Mac isn't much of a smiler.

We left about ten, and strolled towards the end of the block to look for a cab. (I hadn't wanted to try to manhandle the no-power-steering Captain Midnight with my arm still messed up, and I wasn't _about_ to let Buffy drive him.)

We reached the corner, saw nothing, no traffic at all, and simply stood quietly for a moment, arms around each others' waists, not needing to say anything, just… comfortable together. It felt… great.

Right up until a wave of unnatural cold swept over us from the direction of Mac's place, accompanied by a wash of mist so dense that it might well have been a grounded cloud.

I had my blasting rod in my duster, but no staff. Buffy wasn't carrying the Scythe.

Crap.

"Any idea what it is, Harry?" Buffy asked, dropping her arm from my waist and turning to her right even as I let go of her and turned to my left, putting us back-to-back.

"Not yet," I admitted, wishing to hell that my arm wasn't in a sling. "Too many things it could be."

"Wonderful," she sighed, and I felt her square her shoulders against my back. "Listen up, whatever-you-are— you are interrupting my first actual date with my guy. That's what we in the business call 'hazardous freaking duty,' okay? So why don't you do yourself a favor, and just… crawl back into your hole, before I decide to come and kick your stupid ass so hard that your hat size goes up!"

For a long moment, there was silence— then a sound that made me seriously nervous.

I heard a rhythmic sound, a simple, steady beating of a drum, slightly tinny, obviously reproduced by a radio or tape player.

"Necromancer," I muttered, just loud enough for Buffy to catch it. "The beat is how they control zombies— the zombies think the beat is their heartbeat, follow the person who produces it."

"Wonderful," Buffy said softly. "And your zombies here— strong, tough and even _fast_. No fair!"

"Sorry, Buffy," I sighed. "I didn't make the rules, honest."

"Next time, maybe you should, honey!" Buffy told me.

"Dresden! I don't wish to fight you. I brought the zombies only to assure that you wouldn't attack me."

I knew that voice. A woman's voice, one I hadn't heard in… five years? Not since the Halloween when the Heirs of Kemmler and a couple of other necromancers had tried to elevate one of their number to godhood. Then, she'd been running around with Cowl— with Matthias Archleone, before I'd managed to identify him.

"Kumori," I said aloud. Then I raised my voice and said, "Lose the fog, and we can talk, Kumori."

The fog rolled backwards, like a fog machine somewhere had been switched from "blow" to "suck," and I saw Kumori, a slight woman in a heavy, cowled robe (and a mask under the cowl), all topped by a heavy cloak, standing in front of six zombies, relatively fresh ones. One of them carried a tape player, which was producing the beat that let the younger (I was pretty sure, anyway) necromancer control the zombies.

"Dresden," Kumori said, and gave me a nod of recognition that was almost a bow. "And… Miss Summers." Damned if Kumori didn't bow full-on to Buffy, martial arts style, and very low. "It is a pleasure to meet you, slayer. You… inspired me to become more than just another college girl, to seek a way to be more than what I was."

"Gee, and you couldn't have picked up on the 'be a good guy' part of the message, too?" Buffy said, her voice dry and even. "Because, really? That's the more important part of the whole message of my life. 'Be a good guy. The pay sucks, but saving the world really rocks,' that's the message I was trying to put out there by example."

"I am not a villain," Kumori said, her voice level. "I am working to preserve the world— despite what Wizard Dresden may believe.

"I came here in peace— as proof, I offer the method I'm using to control the zombies with me."

"Huh?" Buffy said, cocking her head at Kumori.

"It's electronic," I said, keeping my voice level. "If I make even a tiny effort, Buffy, I can shut it down— and then the zombies go out of control, attack Kumori just as likely as you or me. More likely, even, they're closer to her."

Kumori didn't say anything, just nodded.

"Okay, well… that makes me relax a tiny bit," Buffy said. "I'd relax more if you'd let us see your face, though."

"That I cannot do," Kumori said, and she sounded honestly regretful. "I have reasons beyond the obvious, and I must keep them secret, for now.

"But I… there are those among my allies who…. I do not approve of the chances they take, of the methods they use… and I will not stand by while they use methods I find abhorrent to attack one who, while he opposes us, does so for the right reasons, and helps those in need when they ask.

"I will not let them commit… commit _atrocities_ in their attempts to remove you from the side of the enemy, Dresden. Not without at least attempting to… warn… you."

Those last three words were forced, and left Kumori gasping for breath, shivering, and with her hands clenched together in front of her waist so tightly that her arms shook clear to her shoulders.

I got it, then. "The Circle." Kumori's head jerked up in surprise when I said those words, used the name the group I'd been calling 'the Black Council' used for themselves, but I thought I saw something like hope in her posture as I continued. "The Circle has you under some sort of compulsion not to give away their secrets, don't they?"

Kumori managed a small nod, and said, "It is… difficult to act… on my conscience, rather than their orders. But I will… will not let _her_ kill you. They should never have treated with _her,_ never have bargained with such a… a _monster_."

I got it then, but so did Buffy— and she said it first.

"Mavra," Buffy said, her voice dripping with hate and anger— and she'd never even met the bitch. Gave me a warm, tingly feeling, and I kept it as Buffy went on. "They did something, gave her something, didn't they? Some sort of edge over Harry?"

"Yes," Kumori gasped. "Yes. She— she fears him, and much, _much_ more does she fear the two of you together."

"She should," Buffy said, nodding. "Can you tell us anything about what sort of 'edge' they handed her?"

"I— I wish— I am tr—trying t-t-to—" Kumori stopped then, made a sort of choking, gagging noise, and doubled over, placed her hands on her knees and began breathing in great, whooping gasps. "Can't. I'm sorry, I _can't,_ damn them!"

"No, it's okay," Buffy said, and took a single half step in that direction. "Look, if we talked around it, maybe? Could you give us something, anything, if we got close to it?"

"I— I can try," Kumori said, nodding. "I _will_ try."

"Okay," Buffy said slowly. She looked at me and said, "Harry, you've told me a lot about your past cases— and I think it's easier for Kumori to talk to me." Kumori nodded just a little, and Buffy nodded at her a little in return. "Mind if I try it first?"

"Go ahead," I said, and reached out to squeeze her hand. "You've got some amazing instincts, Buffy. Go with them, see what you can find out."

Buffy smiled me a thank you, then took another half step towards Kumori, who didn't make any move to retreat. "Okay," the slayer said, looking thoughtful. "Mavra's already a powerful Black Court vampire, a— a Rukh, right, Harry?"

I nodded, but didn't speak. Kumori seemed more at ease talking to Buffy, so I figured I'd just play invisible man, maybe make it easier for her to talk by being unobtrusive. (And let me tell you, being unobtrusive isn't exactly easy when you're six-nine and over two hundred and fifty pounds.)

"Okay, so Mavra's already a Rukh, and apparently a full-blown wizard on top of that." Buffy looked thoughtful for a moment, then cocked her head to one side and said, "Also, she's a coward. I mean, she's already got those edges and she takes more? Chicken and not ashamed of it.

"Sidetracked, sorry… so the Circle— that's the group that H— that my friend and his friends are calling the Black Council, right, Kumori?"

Slowly, jerkily, Kumori nodded, and Buffy smiled her way. "Okay, good. So let's see… they love to gate in monsters from elsewhere— did they give her access to a monster army?"

"No." Kumori was trembling, her voice unsteady, but she managed to avoid actually stammering, this time. "I think she can very probably do that already. She's… perhaps as powerful as… as your date, and she has had much longer to practice her skills."

"Okay, so… crap, did they teach her to summon outsiders?" Buffy asked, now looking worried.

"No," Kumori said, her voice small and shaky. "No. W-worse."

"Worse than— oh, no." Buffy rubbed her temples with the index and middle fingers of her hands and said slowly, "They gave her one of those stones, didn't they? The stones with something in them that cranks up magical power, and dumps whatever magical knowledge you want into your head?"

"Y—yes." It was barely a whisper— and as it left her mouth, Kumori's whole body spasmed, and she threw up violently, barely jerked the mask she wore out of the way in time.

The necromancer fell to the ground, caught herself on hands and knees, then rolled sideways, away from the mess she'd brought up— and she screamed, a long, agonized thing. Buffy was moving before me, and I moved fast. Buffy knelt next to the young woman— I could see that much from the exposed mouth and chin where she'd pulled her mask up to be sick.

"Harry, what's wrong with her!" Buffy asked as Kumori's body arched in agony, and she screamed again.

"Compulsion to not talk, and she broke it— I guess it was better than she thought." I knelt beside the young necromancer, thinking furiously. I didn't dare touch her— that might well set the zombies to attacking me, it was a wonder they had let Buffy touch her without interpreting it as an attack.

"Can you help her?" Buffy asked.

"I can try, but I'm afraid that her pals here may interpret it as an attack— so you be ready to keep them off me it that happens."

Before I could try the only thing I could think of that might help (and I didn't have a lot of hope for it working, really— psychomancy was Molly's thing, not mine), Kumori's eyes opened, and she raised a hand and spoke a single word in a language that sounded light and musical.

The zombies immediately turned and walked off to the nearest alley, turned into it, and, by the sound of things, walked a ways down it before Kumori managed another word— and they all simply collapsed as the magic animating them left.

"Thank you, Kumori," Buffy said softly, and took the shuddering, twitching, young woman's hand. "Harry?"

There's a bit of psychomancy that even the most rigid, uncompromising, thou-shalt-not-use-anything-less-than-white-magic-as-pure-as-the-driven-snow bastard I ever knew (Warden Donald Morgan, of course) used a couple of times, and I used it now, sending waves of calm and drowsiness out into Kumori's mind as I said softly, "Somnus. Dormio somnus. Dormio…."

It actually worked. Kumori's eyes, a bright, glittering brown, closed as her body sagged in relief from whatever had been happening to her as punishment for breaking the compulsion laid on her.

I sagged back onto my heels in relief and let out a breath. "You know," I said slowly, "I have a whole lot of no use at all for a lot of the White Council, and less than that for the Merlin— but when I see something like that—" I pointed at the now-resting-quietly Kumori. "—I remember that the White Council really is the good guys, and that even the Merlin would be pissed that someone did _this_ to _anyone_."

"Yeah," Buffy agreed with a sigh. "Harry? What's gonna happen when she wakes up?"

"Damned if I know," I admitted, and rubbed at my mouth in thought. "I think… do you have your cell phone?"

"Sure," Buffy said, and reached into the purse that rested next to her knees. "Who should I call?"

"Let me get away from you a bit— twenty paces or so, I'm… not real calm right now— then call Xander or Dawn, have them see if Molly's still in the lab." My former apprentice had been working on a charm like the one she'd made for Murphy, this time for Dawn. "If she is, get one of them to bring her here, they know where the keys to Captain Midnight are.

"Molly can probably do a lot more for her than I can."

With that, I stood up and walked down to the alley where Kumori's zombies had gone. They were all slumped together about halfway down the alley, and I made a mental note to have Buffy call Rawlins at SI and tell him about the bodies and how they'd gotten there, and that they weren't a danger any more.

Buffy hung up the phone and waved me back to her, told me that Dawn was on her way, with Molly in the car.

"Xander's over at Michael's— he got the call after supper, and wanted to talk to Michael before he left." Buffy pointed up at the sky as she spoke, and I got it— _THE_ call.

"Lash, too?" I asked.

"No, just Xander," Buffy said. "She's not going with him, but took him over to Michael's, will take him to the airport from there."

"What are they driving?" I asked, since as far as I knew, I had the only car among the lot of us that lived in the building.

"Michael's truck— he told Xander to take it after work," Buffy shook her head. "I think he's still plugged into things, Harry, and knew that Xander would be called."

"Probably," I agreed, and smiled a little. "Michael… he's something else."

"Yeah," Buffy said fondly. "He is."

A few minutes later, Dawn and Molly pulled up in Captain Midnight, and Molly wasted no time in examining Kumori with her Sight. After a few seconds of looking at the young necromancer, Molly shook her head in disgust, and growled, _"Damn_ whoever did this— it's barbaric!"

I blinked and took a half a step back, and Molly noticed. "What?" she asked, her voice more calm.

"Molly, you sounded just like your mom at her most ferocious for a second, there," I said, smiling a little. "Flashback city— kinda scary, but in a good way."

Molly blinked slowly, then gave me a positively radiant smile. "Thank you, boss."

"You're welcome, grasshopper," I said. "So, can you help our… benefactor, here?"

"I can, but I'll do better in the lab," Molly said immediately. "I want some stuff I have there— and I'm gonna need a circle for this, to protect us both."

"What the hell did they do to her?" Dawn asked, seeing my face go dark with anger, and Molly's return to that state.

"They put a very minor demon in her head," Molly said, her voice once again tight and hard and just like her mother's when Charity had told me that she damned well _was_ going with me to rescue Molly from the clutches of a bunch of über-powerful wicked faeries.

"They— a demon?" Dawn looked shocked for a moment, then her expression darkened towards anger. "In her _head!_

"Harry, when you go after the people who did this to her, can I come along with a machine gun and some of those grenades we never used all of?"

"Ask your sister," I said, tilting my head towards Buffy, who looked as stormy and pissed off as the rest of us. "But you've got my permission, if that helps."

"Bet on it," Buffy said, standing and picking Kumori up to take her to the car. That looked almost comical, since the two of them were pretty much of a size, but I didn't smile. "This— I don't care if she's technically the enemy, this is just wrong."

We went home, Dawn driving, Molly and Buffy in the back with Kumori, and me in the shotgun seat. Once we were there, Buffy carried Kumori to the lab on the fifth floor, and set her on an old couch that we had there to nap on while potions simmered, or whatever.

"Okay, boss," Molly said, looking around at me as she started for the lab. "Moral dilemma time.

"She's masked and covered all over, and I'm guessing she won't like being exposed— but there are enchantments on the mask, the cloak and the cowl, stuff that may interfere with the magic I'm going to work. I need to take it off— but she probably won't thank me for it.

"And before you volunteer to leave before I work, you can't— I've never done this sort of thing alone before, and this one… it's going to be tricky, Harry. I need you here for backup, and to make sure the demon doesn't get from her head to mine."

I hesitated for a moment, then said, "Okay, well… Buffy, she admires you, respects you to hell and gone. So Molly, Dawn and I are going to go into the kitchen and sit while you get the cloak, cowl and mask off of Kumori, then drape… uh, a dishtowel, I'll get you one, over her face.

"That work, Molly?"

"Yeah, boss," Molly said— and bounced up on her toes to kiss my cheek.

"What was that for?" I asked, even as Dawn matched her on the other side. "Not complaining, but curious."

"You show this kind of consideration for an enemy, then want to know why we're kissing you?" Dawn said, giving me a smile as radiant as the one Molly had given me when I told her she was reminding me of Charity. "It's no wonder Xander gave you hell about how hard you are on yourself, Harry Dresden."

"Damn right," Molly said, and Buffy laughed and agreed.

"Oh, go get a towel and get to work," I growled at Molly, and she laughed and went.

Once Buffy assured us that Kumori's face was covered, we all came back into the main room of the apartment, and Molly started her circle, using a layered circle complete with the Japanese symbols she used for her magic. She put me next to her in a linked-to-hers circle of my own, so that I could move in and help her if the demon in Kumori's head was nastier than she thought.

It wasn't. The actual exorcism was almost anticlimactic, and Molly banished the demon that had been shoved into the necromancer's head with ease. After that, I left the linked circle, so that none of my energy would interfere while Molly worked the incredibly delicate magics needed to undo the things that had been done to Kumori.

Forty-five minutes after she finished the exorcism, Molly finally finished the restorative work on Kumori. I think she meant to re-mask the girl, but Kumori woke almost as soon as Molly finished, before my former apprentice had even caught her breath.

"Easy!" Molly said as the girl jerked awake and started to reach for the towel covering her face. "You're safe, but we had to unmask you to make you safe, and you're in a room with Harry Dresden— if you don't want him seeing your face, you'd better lie still until we can get your mask and stuff back to you, and get out of the room so you can put it back on."

For a long moment the girl didn't move, just lay there. Finally, she spoke— and I froze as I recognized the voice.

"I think I'd better just come clean," she said, and my world started spinning.

It couldn't be, she was much smaller than— and her eyes were brown, not the color of storm clouds.

Then I looked again, and saw that the body on the couch was long and lean, not short and petite, as I remembered Kumori being.

She took the towel off of her face and sat up, looked around at all of us, quirked a sad little smile at Molly's gasp of recognition, then, finally, met my eyes.

"Hello, Harry," said Elaine Mallory, the first woman I had ever loved. "I'll bet you have some questions…."


	33. Chapter 33

I stared at the woman who'd been my first love, first lover, first real relationship, first _loss,_ and I felt my brain trying to reject the sight before me, the sound of her voice, the reality that this was Elaine Mallory, who had once meant _everything_ to me.

Justin DuMorne, who had adopted us at about the same time, had meant to turn us both into his thralls, mindless, enchanted thugs who did his bidding without question or even the _possibility_ of question. When I'd killed Justin in a magical duel— four years later, and in self-defense, which was why I hadn't been executed for breaking the First Law of Magic— I'd thought that Elaine, already magically enthralled, had died in the resulting fire. I hadn't found out different for more than ten years. When I had found out, Elaine had been opposing me, working for the Summer Courts of Faerie, while I was working for Mab and Winter. Things had gotten complicated, but we'd parted on good terms after Elaine, ordered to bind and kill me, deliberately used a spell she knew I could break for the binding, allowing me to escape.

I hadn't seen Elaine for… most of five years after that. She'd moved to California and taken a page from my book— learned to be a private investigator, then started advertising in the LA yellow pages under "wizards." She'd returned to Chicago when hired by a bunch of low-powered female practitioners who were being targeted by a serial killer, and we'd clashed briefly (the killer was a tall, slender man in a gray cloak— and I'm a tall, slender man with a gray warden's cloak), then worked together to solve the case. That was when Molly had seen Elaine, how she'd recognized her now.

And now it turned out that she was Kumori, a member of the Black Council, a woman I'd seen her even before the case involving us being on opposite sides of faerie politics. She'd been at a party I'd attended, one given by a Red Court vampire. The very party where Susan was infected with the bite of a Red Court vampire….

Elaine had said she'd bet that I had some questions. I could only think of one.

"Why?" I barely recognized my own voice, it was so rough with unshed tears, and filled with a mix of pure hurt— and burning fury. _"Why,_ Elaine?"

"Because I don't trust the White Council. Because I never will. Because I believe— _believed— _ that if those damned fools were left in charge, it would mean the end of everything." Elaine met my eyes while she said those things, met them and held them. "I was stupid. I know that, now— but I believed that it was the right thing to do."

I said nothing for a moment— until Buffy, who'd been staring back and forth at us, came closer to me and took my hand. Immediately, I felt like an ass, and I looked away from Elaine to look at Buffy.

"Old girlfriend?" Buffy asked, her voice soft and calm— which helped me calm down.

"First girlfriend. First…." I hesitated, then finished the thought. "First _everything,_ Buffy."

Buffy looked up at me, and I did my best to convey that, shock and all, I wasn't so shocked that I'd stopped loving her. It must have worked (maybe it was the hand-squeeze I added to the look), because she gave me a little smile and said, "Want me to handle this? The questioning, I mean?"

I hesitated, and I actually considered it. Then I sighed and shook my head. "You can't, Buffy. Too many things you wouldn't know to ask.

"But… stay? Please? Right here? Holding-my-hand right here?"

"Bet on it." She hugged me one-armed, and when I turned to look at Elaine again, Buffy took my good hand in both of hers.

"This… explains a lot." I swallowed, hard. "Explains how you knew about my shield bracelet and force ring the night you came to Cabrini Green to try to talk me into withdrawing from the conflict over Kemmler's book. And… and maybe why you tried to get me to drop it…?"

"Yes." Elaine met my eyes again, and nodded a little. "I didn't want you to get caught up in that, I thought… I thought there was no way you could survive. I never anticipated…." Elaine quirked a small, amused smile, then finished, "I never anticipated you being crazy enough to use the knowledge in Kemmler's book to animate a _dinosaur_ and come after us. Maybe I should have— but I didn't."

Molly smothered a giggle, and said, "Captain Luccio told me that Warden Morgan once said he should have expected it." She pitched her voice low and imitated Ana imitating Morgan. "It was so completely insane, it walked the very edge of the Laws of Magic, it required ridiculous amounts of power— and it was completely effective. I should have expected it of _Dresden_."

I gave Molly a small smile, the best I could manage at that moment— and someone knocked on the door of the apartment. Dawn went to get it, came back with Lash (and holding her hand, which had Lash blushing— I wished I could find a good enough mood in me to think that was cute, but I couldn't).

"What's going on?" Lash asked, looking from face to face worriedly.

Dawn explained it in short, succinct sentences— and Lash came over to hug me, then stood on my other side and gave Elaine a glare worthy of Molly's mother, Charity.

"Harry, I could handle this, if you don't want to," Lash said softly. "I know this has to be hard for you— and I know the questions that need asked."

"No." I took a deep breath and glanced at Lash. "You know the questions that need asked about the Black Council, or the Circle, or whatever you want to call them, Lash— but you don't know the ones _I_ need, for me."

Lash hesitated, sighed, then said, "I'm not sure I agree with you on that— remember where I used to live, Harry— but I do understand your need to ask them for yourself."

I thanked her, then turned back to Elaine. "You got caught up in all this… how? How did 'the Circle' recruit you?"

Elaine sighed and leaned forward, elbows on her knees, hands clasped and out in front of her. I had seen that body language before, a hundred times at least— it meant that she wasn't proud of herself, but was determined to admit to some mistake. "It was while they were recruiting Aurora, Harry." She actually quirked a small, sad smile at me. "You don't think that convincing the Summer Lady to break a cycle that is older than humankind was easy, do you Harry? It took time, a lot of time, a few _years_. I was part of her court, I heard their pitch— and long before they convinced her, I was ready to join up.

"They oppose the White Council, Harry, and in those days, the White Council was my boogeyman, my… I was afraid of them more than I was of Justin maybe not being dead.

"So while they worked on Aurora, they got me. I joined them before she even agreed to their plan."

I interrupted her then, and said, "Elaine, you know they didn't _'convince'_ her, don't you?"

She looked up at me, confused. "What do you mean, Harry?"

"There is no way to 'convince' a queen of the faeries— even the youngest and least powerful of them, like Aurora— to act against her nature, Elaine," I said, my voice sad— because I believed that she hadn't known, that her confusion at my question was real. "It can't be done.

"They didn't convince her— they drove her insane, probably with enchantments."

Elaine stared at me for a long moment, then slowly shook her head and said, "Oh, god. Oh, god I know that, I _know_ that you can't— Harry, why didn't I remember that? Why didn't I—" Elaine stopped, and an expression that mixed sudden realization, horror and fury settled onto her face. "They enchanted _me_. They— even back then, they were using magic to make me see things their way! They— they're not like that, they said they wouldn't do things like— oh, god!

"They're worse than the White Council. My god, I was… I was fighting for the wrong side.

"Oh, god, Harry— what have I done?"

I didn't answer her— I looked at Molly.

Molly's eyes had never left Elaine while she spoke, and now my former apprentice turned to meet mine.

"She's telling the truth, boss. They completely twisted her around. The work was subtle, more subtle than I've ever seen, so subtle that…." Molly hesitated, glanced at Elaine, then sighed and looked back to me. "So subtle that I don't think it did any serious damage to her mind. I think… Harry, I think you can trust her. I think they used bonds so subtle at first that… Harry, it was like a really good hypnotist is supposed to be. They can't make you do things you really, really don't want to do. Not without scrambling your brains, anyway. But they can skew your sense of right and wrong, tilt your perceptions… like Peabody did with the Senior Council, only with Elaine, it was easier, since she's not anywhere near as old as the Council members, and her mind isn't as hard to access.

"That's what they did to Elaine, at least at first. Later…." Molly looked at Elaine and asked, "When did you start disagreeing with them, Elaine? Disagreeing on big things, I mean?"

Elaine didn't hesitate, just said, "It was after the last case Harry and I worked together, the one where you and I almost actually met, Wizard Carpenter."

"Molly, please."

"Thanks." Elaine took a deep, steadying breath— and I saw what the grasshopper had just done, and fought down a prideful grin.

By giving Elaine permission to use her first name _now,_ under these circumstances, Molly had shown that she, at least, really believed that Elaine wasn't at fault for her actions. That was just plain brilliant— and far more subtle than I would have expected out of Molly.

"It was that case where we almost met, Molly," Elaine said, and ran a hand through her long, ripe-wheat colored hair. "When Harry summed it up for me, told me that Cowl had almost killed everyone at the end, how Cowl had been behind Vittorio Malvora and Madrigal Raith's plot to take over the Skavis's plan to kill off female practitioners… I got pissed.

"That wasn't how they had told me that they operated. I'd been led to believe that the Circle was above such things, that they would never deliberately kill the innocent— yes, innocent people might get caught in the crossfire, like when they attempted the Darkhallow, but they would never deliberately _target_ the innocent— but they had. They didn't interfere with the Skavis's killing all his previous victims, and they planned to further his— well, Lara Raith's, but the Skavis was the one who enacted it, would have taken credit for it— they intended to further that plan to kill off minor female practitioners of magic, since the gift usually passes from the mother's side of the family.

"I went nuclear on Matthias— Cowl, his name is—"

"Matthias Archleone, I know."

Elaine looked blank for a moment, then nodded. "I knew you'd caught him— but I didn't think you'd have gotten his name out of him, Harry."

"I recognized him," I told her. When she cocked her head in puzzlement, I added, "He looks a lot like his father— and I'd crossed swords with Nicodemus a time or two."

"And you survived!" Elaine blurted. Then she had the good grace to blush, and said, "I'm sorry, Harry, but do you know what Nicodemus _is?"_

"I know what he _was,"_ I corrected her. "A two-thousand year old man with a fallen angel living in his head. Now? He's dead and his coin is in the custody of the church."

"Nicodemus is— how! Who could've killed that… something that powerful and that… sneaky?"

"He kidnapped a couple of Michael Carpenter's kids, demanded me in exchange for them," I said slowly. "Michael is one of my best friends, Elaine— and one of those kids was his foster daughter, not his blood daughter. She—"

"Harry, are you sure this is wise?" Lash interrupted. She met my eyes for a moment— not long enough for a Soulgaze, but long enough to make a point— when I looked at her, and said, "I know that Elaine has been manipulated, but there may still be traces of enchantment on her, perhaps designed to make her act as a double-agent, or… forgive me, but even as an assassin."

I thought about that, then said, "Well, if there's anyone here who can spot that sort of thing, Lash, it's you. Would you be willing to check for that sort of thing?"

Lash didn't answer me, but turned to Elaine. "Miss, I believe that you were manipulated, and I believe that _you_ do not mean us any harm now. However, I have… much experience with very, very subtle magics, and I know that you could well have some enchantment cast on you that causes you to betray Harry, much though you care for him.

"I can check for such things— but it will be a two-fold effort. The first, easier step is simply to examine you using my wizard's Sight. That I feel no need to ask permission for— but the second part of the process… I will not do without your consent.

"You and I will have to share a Soulgaze. There are methods of enchantment so subtle, and very possibly known to Matthias Archleone, that no other method of detection will work."

For a long moment, Elaine didn't speak, just looked at Lash speculatively. After most of a minute, she said, "Okay, well, if you and I are going to share a Soulgaze, 'miss' just won't do— you'll have to call me Elaine, and you'll have to tell me your name."

Lash blushed, realizing that Elaine had no idea who she was, and looked to me for an introduction.

"Elaine Mallory, wizard and… oldest of friends," I said, quirking a little smile at her, "this is Janet Lash, who prefers to be called Lash. Lash is a wizard, obviously— and she is a Knight of the Cross."

"Oh," Elaine said, and blinked. She looked at Lash, studied her for a minute— then grinned. "Go, you. You look nothing like the standard image of a knight— nice to see a woman in the job.

"A Knight of the Cross… of course I'll share a Soulgaze with you. Who knows— maybe I'll come out better for it."

"Perhaps the same will be true for me," Lash said, smiling a little. She closed her eyes slowly, opened them just as slowly, and looked at Elaine with her Sight. I saw Lash look puzzled for a moment, then smile slowly. "Ah— your cloak and mask… and the hood? They are enchanted to make you appear different. The magics have left a… residue on you, but it is fading already, and harmless."

For a moment more, Lash's eyes moved over Elaine, and she drew in a breath sharply. "Good lord, that's… that's a spell of Tessa's. Modified, though, made… made more subtle, more… I think it might have been harmless, or nearly so. Molly, you're right— this is the most subtle mind magic I've ever seen, and I don't believe that it harmed Elaine at all. It's amazing work."

Lash did that long, slow blink again, and shook her head a little. "I should have looked at you and Buffy while I had that up, Harry— but Molly, Dawn and Elaine were enough for the moment, all the… power that I could handle seeing for now."

"Wait, what?" Dawn said, plainly confused. "I'm no wizard, so… power?"

"Power," Lash said, and nodded. "Power of… personality. Power of conviction. Power of belief. Power of will. Power, Dawn, that has nothing to do with magic— but is still to be respected."

"I… me?" Dawn asked. "I mean— well, I… thank you?"

"Good grief, you actually rendered her speechless," Buffy said, a smile on her face. "Lash, I knew you were powerful— but I didn't know you were _that_ powerful."

Dawn glared at Buffy, or tried to— but it turned into a grin and she said, "Wow. Thanks, Lash."

"For telling the truth?" Lash gave Dawn a merry smile. "You're welcome, I suppose— but really, it's a job requirement."

Then Lash turned back to Elaine, and asked softly, "Are you ready, Elaine?"

"As ready as I'm going to get," Elaine admitted. She looked a little nervous, and gave me a slightly worried smile. "I haven't done this since… since Harry and I did it more than twenty years ago. And that…." Elaine shook her head and looked far, far away for a moment. "That was maybe the most… powerful thing I've ever experienced in my life."

"Yes!" Buffy said, sounding relieved. "Yes, that's it. Thank you, Elaine— I've been trying to hang a word on it since he and I Soulgazed last New Year's Eve, and that's it.

"Powerful. Thanks."

"You're welcome," Elaine said. Then she looked at me and said, "Oh, stop blushing, Harry. It's true. It was a very powerful experience."

"Hush, you," I said. "It's my party, I'll blush if I want to."

Elaine snorted a laugh, then took a deep breath and looked at Lash's face, but not her eyes. "Now?"

"Now."

Lash and Elaine locked eyes, and a few seconds later, I felt— all of us felt, I think— the Soulgaze start.

It lasted for maybe forty-five seconds on the outside, but I knew it would seem longer to both of them. And I knew that Elaine, whatever she'd experienced when she Soulgazed me— the inability to talk about it is a pain, let me tell you— would probably be at least ten times as floored by Soulgazing _a former fallen angel who had accepted mortal life in order to make up for the things she had done as a fallen angel_.

That has to be a _powerful_ soul, that's all I'm saying.

Plainly, I was right. Tears started falling from Elaine's eyes at about the twenty second mark, and when the 'gaze ended (we all felt it), the first thing Elaine said, was a near-gasped "Thank you!"

"You are very welcome," Lash said— and she went over and pulled Elaine to her feet and hugged her before she turned to me. "You were right, Harry— she may be trusted with what you started to tell her. I would trust her with my life— with your life, or Buffy's, even with Dawn's life."

Lash stopped talking, realized what she'd just said, and started blushing, went right past red and into purple, seemed to be headed for eggplant— and Dawn simply came over and took her hand, looked her in the eyes and said, "Would you go to dinner with me tomorrow night, Lash?"

"I… yes, please, I would… yes." Lash blushed, smiled— and shivered, but I recognized it as a happy sort of shiver, and Dawn plainly did, too.

"On that note," I said, and looked back to Elaine. "Nicodemus kidnapped one of Michael's children, and his foster daughter. His foster daughter Maggie, is named for my mother— because Maggie is my daughter.

"I killed the bastard— and I'll do the same to anyone who threatens Maggie."

For a long moment, Elaine stared at me, her eyes wide with amazement and something a little too close to awe for my comfort. Then, slowly, she said, "He kidnapped your daughter— and you _only_ killed him?

"Nicodemus got off easy, I think."

"Yeah, well— I was too busy being scared out of my mind to actually think of a better revenge than killing him." I grimaced, remembered how terrified I'd been, and shook my head slowly. "I had a lot of help, Elaine— and I got lucky besides."

"Okay." She shuddered. "Anyway— that's when they… started exerting more control over me, I think. Matthias didn't like being told that he was out of line, and he… he told me that I could either go along or leave the Circle— and I was still so damned scared of the White Council—"

"No," Molly interrupted, very gently. "You weren't that scared, Elaine. He magnified your… worry, not fear, until it was fear, bordering on terror.

"It wasn't you. It was Cowl. Matthias."

Elaine blanched, then shivered— then nodded. "Great. Now I'm going to wonder about everything I thought I felt since… well, since we argued after he pulled that bullshit of trying to kill female practitioners.

"Harry— right now, before I say another damned word, let me tell you— when you go after them, I'm _in._ I'm helping. I'll be on whatever side of you Buffy isn't on, and I'll keep you as safe as I can— so you can tear these bastards down."

I smiled a little, and Buffy chuckled and said, "I'm good with either side— do you prefer left or right?"

"I'm a righty, I'll take right." Elaine took a deep breath. "Anyway. That was when it got… heated. I was forced to accept a… a keeper, I guess. A wizard of the Circle moved to LA, joined me at my PI work, and… well, I wish she wasn't a bad guy, because really, she was good at the PI game."

"Maybe she wasn't a bad guy," Molly said. "Maybe she was like you, pushed into doing the things she did magically."

"No." Elaine's mouth set in a hard line, and she said, "She's one of them. Completely. Kept me from taking some cases 'because it would interfere with Circle business,' and when I tried to convince her to let me talk to the Circle honchos about it, she said no. I tried to insist, and she said it again— very forcefully. She's theirs."

"Crap," Molly said, and shook her head. "Okay, so… when did the assholes stick a demon in your head? And how did you slip your watchdog?"

"The demon… I wasn't supposed to find out about them making a deal with Mavra, giving her a power-stone, but I came back from a lunch meeting with a client early— she got some bad sushi, that killed the meeting— and heard Diane talking to Galen." She looked up and said, "Galen's one of the higher-ups in the Circle— I never saw his face or heard another name for him, sorry.

"Anyway, he had come to tell Diana to keep me on a short leash until after you were dead, Harry, said that it should be less than a week before you died. Diana asked how he could be so sure you'd be dead in a week, and he said that Mavra had come to them and offered to support them if they'd help her against you. So… they gave her a power-stone.

"I got out of there and went home— and Matthias was waiting for me. Galen had sensed me somehow, known I heard him and Diana talking. He called Matthias, and Matthias was waiting for me. He… let me try to escape, let me attack him, but I had no real chance. He put me down with neuromancy, held me in place and told me that I should have accepted your death as inevitable, Harry.

"Matthias… he didn't even pretend to be sorry about things. He just… he knocked me out, and when I woke up, he told me that I couldn't disobey orders anymore, couldn't even do things I thought the Circle might not like, because it would hurt too much, might even kill me. Then he left.

"It took me a while to figure out a way past it— I set out to Chicago to kill you, Harry, kept that thought at the top of my mind while I grabbed the things I had to have to leave, then staked out the office until Diana left to go home for the day, got the few foci I kept there, and got the hell out of LA."

"I managed to keep thinking about how I was going to kill you until I saw you and Buffy, then… well, you know the rest."

"They'll be looking for you, and they're probably bright enough to look here," Buffy said, beating me to it. "So they may already know you're here. Harry, what can we do about that?"

I thought about that for a moment, then said, "Well… I'm not seeing a lot of options, so I think it's either she stays here— not in this place, it's our lab, but here in the building, somewhere— or we fake her death in some big, spectacular way."

"Think we could do a convincing enough golem without having to maim her, since we won't be trying to fool fallen angels?" Buffy asked brightly.

"Wait, who got mai— Harry, what did you do to yourself?" Elaine said as she got the meaning. "What did you— let me see your hand, Harry!"

Elaine stood and stalked towards me, and I sighed and disentangled my left hand from Buffy's, held it out to show her. She looked surprised, and I realized that she'd been thinking the sling my right arm was there because that's where I'd "maimed" myself.

Elaine took my left hand, looked at the stump where my pinky had once been and sighed. "Oh, Harry. Was it really necessary?"

"Yeah," I said, nodding. "Maggie. Hope Carpenter. Necessary."

"At least it was done right," Elaine said, and looked at Buffy. "You did it?"

"Yes," Buffy said. "That way… well, I knew it would be clean, and Lash could start healing him faster."

"You both did it right," Elaine said. She looked up at me, her eyes serious. "It may grow back— I mean, look how well your old burns healed, Harry. It may grow back. In fact, I could help with that, I think, if you want."

"When everything has calmed down, sure," I said. "It'd be nice to have it back before some smartass like Carlos starts singing songs about 'Nine-Fingered Dresden and the Ring of Doom.' "

Molly laughed aloud at that, then covered her mouth and said, "Sorry, boss!" from behind her hand.

"Okay," I said, looking at Elaine. "Look, things are probably going to blow up in my face really soon, and the kill-a-golem-you trick… we might be able to pull it off, but we might not. If you like, I'm pretty sure that Michael— Molly's dad, a former Knight of the Cross— would let you stay there until… until we can figure out how to wipe the Circle out, or at least figure out how to get them off of your case. He's got protections that extend to the house itself, you'd be well-hidden there.

"Or… well, I've got a spare room. You can crash there."

"Or with me," Buffy said, and gave Elaine a grin that spoke of pure deviltry. "And I'm not inviting you so that you won't be in the same apartment as Harry— I'm inviting you so that we can sit up and gossip like teenagers, and you can tell me embarrassing stories about him."

That startled Elaine into laughter, and it was good to hear— a big, rich laugh that told me that Molly and Lash had it right. Elaine hadn't been permanently damaged by what had been done to her, not if she could laugh like that.

"Or you can stay with me," Lash said, a smile quirking her lips. "I like you, and I like that you tried so very hard to come and help Harry— even though you were afraid that it might kill you."

Elaine blushed at that, and shot Lash a "you weren't supposed to tell him that" look, then looked back at Buffy and said, "Well, if you were serious about gossiping about Harry until all hours, Buffy, I'm all for it— but I warn you, I'm a big fan, so I'm gonna have questions for you, too."

"For Harry gossip?" Buffy's devilish grin actually widened. "You can fangirl me all you want."

"Okay, then," Elaine said. She looked down at her rather impractical wizardly garb and said, "I have couple of bags at a hotel not too far off. Can we figure out how to get them, maybe?"

"Piece of cake," I said— then frowned. "Wait, maybe not. I'm not up to driving Captain Midnight yet. Molly, could you go get Elaine's bags for her if I let you take the Captain?"

Molly's eyes went wide— she'd offered to drive me around in the Captain and I'd refused before this— and she nodded and said, "Sure, boss. And I'll be super-über careful, I promise!"

"You'd better be," I growled, and I tossed her my keys. "If he gets scratched, you get to give Mouse a bath and a pedicure— after I feed him beer and nachos!"

Molly winced at the thought of the gastric expulsions that would follow that, then solemnly held up her right hand and said, "I'll drive like grandma and all the Jawas were in the car, Harry."

"Good enough." I watched Elaine hand Molly her room key, and Molly left.

Lash looked around and said, "Well, since you're going to stay with Buffy, Elaine, I think… Harry, would you like it if I walked Mouse for you?

"That would be a huge help," I said solemnly— and made a small bet with myself as I dug my wallet out of my pocket and got my spare housekey out of there, since Molly had my keys. "Thanks, Lash."

"You're welcome," Lash said, and smiled at me. "I know he's a good dog, but I still worry, with your arm in a sling and all." Then Lash started blushing, and I knew my bet with me had indeed been a winner, even before Lash glanced shyly at Buffy's sister and said, " Um. Dawn? Would you like to… to come with me? It's nice out…."

"That," Dawn said, a slow smile spreading across her face, "sounds like the best offer I've had since Simone Beaubier offered to rub my neck— and that was over a year ago."

Buffy's mouth dropped and she sputtered, "Simone— you and Simone Beaubier! But she was— I mean, that— you and— Dawn!"

Dawn blushed just a little, then smiled at Buffy and said, "Yeah, I know— hottest slayer around, second most gorgeous woman I've ever seen."

"I object to that 'hottest slayer around' thing," Buffy said, trying and not-quite-succeeding to hide a knowing smile under a mock-glare at her sister. "On principle, even if I did drool a little when she walked by and Willow wasn't there to see. But… 'second most gorgeous woman,' that's one I have to ask. Who's first?"

Dawn smiled a thank you at her sister for the assist, and tilted her head sideways at Lash. "I'm about to walk Mouse with the most gorgeous woman I've ever seen."

Lash made a small, happy-but-embarrassed little sputtering sound, blushed darkly— but took Dawn's hand and led her out of the lab with a smile so wide that I worried about the top of her head coming off.

"Now that," Elaine said, smiling and shaking her head a little, "was almost too cute for words. Also a great endorsement for having a sister— you set that one up for her to slam it out of the park, Buffy."

"Well, she's done the same for me, a couple times." Buffy grinned, snorted laughter, and said, "Besides, Lash is so _cute_ when she doesn't know what to say, I couldn't resist helping Dawn out on that one."

I let myself laugh, and nodded. "Nicely done, lady.

"Okay— Elaine, you know I'm going to have to ask you for everything you can tell me about the Circle and their methods, what they know or don't know, sometime soon— but right now, I need to know; do you know if they have a spy in the White Council, and if so, do you know anything about them?"

"I know about two," Elaine said, her eyes going dark and serious. "There's an old man from Australia named Gary Hudson, he's a specialist in alchemy, and he's close to the Merlin— that's one.

"The other is— well, this is going to upset you, Harry. It's a Warden, an English kid named Adam Potter."

I jerked involuntarily when Elaine said that name, and stared at her. "Did you ever see him? What did he look like?"

"Young, maybe twenty-one or twenty-two," Elaine said slowly, closing her eyes to aid her concentration. "Black. Or African-British, or whatever. Shorter than me, maybe five-seven, stocky, but strong. Kept his hair very short, smiled a lot, very dark eyes, even for a Black man."

"Son of a bitch!" I snarled. "He— if he faced the Circle while playing at being a Warden, what would he do, do you know?"

"Fight any of their creatures effectively, but if forced to fight an actual wizard of the Circle, I'm pretty sure he'd throw his game." Elaine looked at me, her eyes widening. "Why, Harry? You know this kid?"

"He fought on Team Dresden in the battle that got us Matthias," I said, standing— I'd sat down at some point, didn't even remember doing it, now. "Buffy, wait here with Elaine, I need to… make a call."

Buffy understood what I meant, and she nodded and said, "Hurry, Harry."

I ran upstairs, found that Lash had thoughtfully locked my door behind her when she took Mouse out for a walk, and I growled and kicked off my left boot, managed to get the key I hid there out from under the insole, and went inside, leaving my boot in the hall.

(What? Yes, I'm a little paranoid, and keep multiple copies of my keys on me. So? It isn't like I don't have a _reason_ to be paranoid!)

I went to my bedroom and got the speaking stone that Ebenezar had given me to replace the one that I had somehow lost during or after the Battle of Chichen Itza, and sat down with it, began meditating, concentrating on my grandfather's face, thinking "Wizard McCoy, hear me. I have urgent information, please, answer now if at all possible!"

It took most of five minutes, but my grandfather answered me, appearing in the blackness opposite me, as he always did when using the speaking stones. He wore and old bathroom and pajama bottoms, and looked bleary-eyed and exhausted.

"Well, son, it's late where you are," Ebenezar said, giving me a slightly reproachful look, "and it's too damned early here in Edinburgh. What's so all-fired urgent, boy?"

"Sir, I have— I have an informant from the Circle here," I said, and raised a hand to ward off his immediate questions. "I don't think I want to talk about it now, sir, not even with these speaking stones supposedly being secure. And really, it's not important, my informant isn't going anywhere soon— too risky, the Circle really hates traitors.

"Point is, sir, I was given the names of two wizards who are members of the White Council who are actually spies for the Circle— and I thought you needed to know that right _now_."

Ebenezar blinked slowly, then nodded and said, "You did right, Hoss. Tell me their names."

"One is an older Australian wizard, an alchemist named Gary Hudson," I said— and my grandfather drew his breath in with a sharp hiss. "My informant said he's a friend of the Merlin's— I'm guessing by your reaction that the information is accurate?"

"It sure as hell is, son," Ebenezar shaking his head slowly. "I know the man— like him myself, or… or I did, anyway. If it's true, well… I'll do what I have to, but I'll hate it.

"And the other?"

"That one… sir, it was one of the young wardens who helped me and my team out against Matthias Archleone and his fellow wizards of the Black Council— the Circle, I mean. And if I'm right, it was probably him that betrayed the location of Camp Kaboom to the Circle.

"Adam Potter, sir. He fought with us, but only against creatures did I ever actually see him do anything, never against hostile wizards."

"I know the boy," my grandfather said, shaking his head slowly. "I know him— and this may well validate your informant's claims, son.

"Yesterday afternoon, the four members of the Circle who had yet to be interrogated escaped, killing one of the wardens on guard— but only injuring Warden Potter."

"Hells bells," I growled. "Sir, did Matthias—"

"No, son." My grandfather drew in a slow breath, then said quietly, "He's dead, Hoss. Has been for days. I got what I could from him, and then I did what had to be done. He was… Harry, he was as black a creature as his father, though in a different way."

Grandfather calling me by name rocked me a little, told me how much he'd hated doing "what had to be done." He didn't call me Harry often at all— maybe two dozen times in the twenty years I'd known him.

"So you can arrest Potter?" I asked after a moment. "Is he under care there at Council headquarters?"

"Aye, that he is," Ebenezar growled. "I'll wake Warden Matelski— he's the new commander of the Wardens, son, you'll get the official notice tomorrow probably— and we'll go arrest the miserable little bastard now."

"How will you explain knowing what you know?" I asked. "Obviously none of the others gave them up, so… how will you explain knowing?"

"I'm on the Senior Council, son," he replied with a mirthless smile. "I can say I got the information from… what's that phrase the police use on TV? A 'confidential informant.'

"And speaking of such… son, I'll need to talk to your informant."

"I know that, sir," I agreed, and I swallowed hard. "It's… you may be angry at me, sir, once you know… everything that's involved— but I'll accept that, because… because I'm more than a little angry at myself for not… seeing this coming before it was tossed in my face."

Ebenezar looked at me with a piercing gaze for a long moment, then nodded and said, "Well, I'll come out tomorrow afternoon, if I can. We can talk about who should be how angry at whom then, Hoss.

"In the meantime, you get some rest— and you hug your lady once from me."

"Thank you… grandfather," I said, thinking that him calling me Harry would let me get away with it.

He smiled a little, shook his head in well-faked-exasperation, and said, "Good night, son."

He vanished, I opened my eyes to see Mouse, Dawn and Lash looking at me worriedly, assured them that I was fine, had just been communicating with a colleague, and let Dawn help me to my feet. I hugged her and Lash each goodnight, then went downstairs to tell Elaine that she was going to have to face not just a member of the White Council, but of the _Senior Council_ of the White Council, sometime the next afternoon.

Yeah. I didn't really expect that to go over very well at all.


	34. Chapter 34

Chapter 34

Elaine was in the bathroom of the lab-apartment when I got back down there, changing to the clothes that Molly had fetched for her. Molly, who tossed me my keys when I came back into the place, was sitting on a chair next to the couch, and Buffy was talking to her. Mouse had followed me downstairs, as had Dawn and Lash, who dropped onto the old couch there, holding hands and both looking content.

Elaine came out of the bathroom a couple of minutes later, wearing jeans and a sweatshirt, her hair in a ponytail, and she grinned at Buffy and I, who were sitting together in a big, overstuffed armchair. Well… I was in it, Buffy was perched comfortably on the arm of the thing.

I decided to get the ugly out of the way right away, and after Elaine had sat down in the only remaining chair in the room, I said, "Okay. Here comes something you aren't going to like, Elaine, but it's necessary, and I hope you'll understand why.

"I called my former mentor from the White Council, and I told him what you told me about the traitors on the White Council. He was glad to hear it, and knew something that pretty much verified that Adam Potter is one of the Circle's people… but he is going to need to talk to you himself, Elaine."

She took a breath in sharply, and tensed— but said, in a low, miserable voice, "All right, Harry."

"Elaine." She looked up at me, her eyes worried, but not fearful— thank you Molly— and I said, "The man who's coming is my friend, not just my mentor. I trust him— and he trusts me. He's the one who took me in after I was caught by the Wardens, tried for killing Justin, and placed under the Doom of Damocles as probation. You know what that means, don't you?"

Elaine nodded, and a little of the worry left her face. "He'd have been killed with you, if you'd done anything else that smacked of black magic. So… so you have a very good reason to trust him, I guess, and he obviously has a good reason to trust you."

"Yeah," I said, nodding. Then I told her the rest of it. "There's one more thing about him that you need to know, Elaine, one more reason that you'll be nervous— but I won't lie to you, not even by not telling you something; he's a member of the Senior Council."

"Shit." Elaine's eyes closed, and she shuddered. She spoke again after a moment, her voice low and scared. "Will you be able to stay with me while I talk to him, Harry?"

"I think so," I said, nodding slowly. "I'll try, Elaine, and I will do everything I can to make this easier for you. I've already told him that he's going to be mad at me for not telling him some things before I did, and I'm hoping that… well. If he's busy being pissed at me, he won't have as much room to be pissed at you.

"But Ebenezar's a fair man, Elaine, and once Molly and Lash have told him what they know, on top of what I know… I think that he'll be inclined to forgive you, the way he did me."

"God, I hope so," Elaine said, her voice shaky.

"Amen," Lash added somberly. She smiled at Elaine then, and said, "I have met Ebenezar McCoy, Elaine. He is a good man, and fair-minded. Also… he is the one whom Harry learned much of his contrariness from. I think that, once he has heard all that we can tell him, he is very likely to want to Soulgaze you for himself— and I think that doing so will cement in his mind that you are in no way evil, or even at fault for the things you have done that were questionable."

"He may be kinda torqued about one thing," I said, maintaining my 'complete honesty' policy, "but he'll have to hear it, Elaine. He may be angry about you violating the Fifth Law when you saved that guys life with necromancy before the Darkhallow attempt… but he may not be, too, since it plainly didn't lead you to do any black magic— and _you saved the guy's life_. I can't say for sure, but I think he'll let that one slide with a glare. Might even growl at you— but I don't believe for a second that he'll be demanding that you stand trial for that, or for anything else."

"Okay, Harry." Elaine took a long, shaky breath. "This is all going to be… hard, that's all. I mean for years… even before the Circle could've magnified it, I was scared of the White Council. So it won't be easy. I'm… if you weren't going to be there, Harry, I don't think I could face this."

"So, how about if I'm there, too?" Buffy asked, smiling a little. "Ebenezar likes me, and he knows that I'm the Slayer, that I'm Harry's lady, and that Harry tells me everything. I'll bet he won't mind me being there."

"That'd help," Elaine agreed. "Thank you, Buffy."

"No thing. Harry's oldest friend's are my friends, too. Especially when they have all sorts of juicy gossip about him that they're willing to share."

Elaine chuckled a little at that, and nodded. "Speaking of which… well, it's late, and I'm wiped out. I can't imagine that Molly isn't tired, after all she's done in the way of magic.

"We should probably all think about sleeping. Or gossiping, then sleeping, in my case and yours, Buffy."

"I'm all for it," Molly said, nodding. "Think I'll call a cab and head for home.

"Elaine, it was good to see you again— and I'm glad I could help."

"Thank you for… well, all the stuff. Exorcism, mind-de-scrambling… trusting me. All of it." Elaine sighed. "Still can't believe how easily I got duped."

"You were manipulated, not duped." Molly was firm, and looked ready to glare. "That's not the same thing, and you need to stop beating yourself up for the things that happened since they aren't your fault.

"Sure, you wanted to believe that the things you were led to do were right. Sure, you were scared of the White Council, and that gave them a place to sink their hooks. Well, guess what?

"I was scared of the White Council, too. Really scared, after Harry told me what I'd done— I didn't mean to do black magic, but I did end up doing it, and that… I knew enough to be scared. No, screw that, I knew enough to be _terrified_.

"But Harry stood beside me. He played the ace up his sleeve at the right time, and made sure that my Dad would be there to help the Council when they were in deep trouble, pretty much forced the Merlin to let me go on probation when the old bastard was gonna have me executed.

"But the thing that should help you the most, Elaine? After Harry died, but before he came back, the White Council was going to impose their suspended sentence on me if no one would take me as their apprentice with Harry gone. But they never got the chance— because Ebenezar didn't just stick up for me, he told the Council about the Battle of Chichén Itzá, risked getting in trouble for his part in things there— the Council didn't know about it, you see, he never told them, and I guess he did get yelled at for not involving them, but never mind.

"Elaine, he told them about that battle— and he made me into a hero of the whole thing, which really wasn't true—"

"Was, too," I put in, and Molly gave me that radiant smile of hers in reply, but kept right on talking.

"—and he forced them to not just drop the whole Doom of Damocles thing, but admit me to the White Council." Molly smiled a little, looked pleased, and said, "And I think he may have put Captain Luccio up to asking me to be a warden, but I don't know for sure.

"Either way… he went out on a limb for me, Elaine, way, way out on a skinny little limb— and he did it because he knew Harry cared about me.

"I'm pretty sure he'll do the same for you— especially when he hears what you did, what you _risked,_ to try to help Harry out."

Elaine looked thoughtful, then nodded slowly, and some of the worry left her eyes. Not all— but some of it. "Thanks, Molly. I needed to hear that."

I got up and hugged Molly good-bye— she deserved it, after that— then hugged Elaine, who hugged back hard, and trembled a little before saying, "Good night, Harry."

"Good night, Elaine." I looked back and forth between her and Buffy, sighed a put-upon sigh, and said, "In thanks for you trying to save my life, I won't ask you not to tell Buffy everything you know that could embarrass me later— but if you could leave out the _really_ embarrassing bits, I'd appreciate it."

"We'll see, Harry," Elaine said, and she let go of me. "But honestly, Buffy's a hero of mine— and I don't know if I _can_ make myself not tell her everything."

"I'm doomed," I said morosely, and kissed Buffy goodnight. "Doomed, I tell you."

"And you love it," Buffy said, squeezing my good hand for a moment. "Night, Harry. Night, Mouse. And good night, Dawn and Lash."

We all left the lab and went our separate ways to bed. I slept poorly— nightmares about Mavra and Justin— and woke to the sound of my alarm. I couldn't remember why I'd even set the damned thing, but now that Mickey Mouse had woken me up, I knew I was doomed not to go back to sleep.

I got up, cooked breakfast, walked Mouse, and came back to find Murphy going into the office.

"Hey, Murph," I said, and she looked up and smiled as Mouse lumbered toward her, pulling me with him. She gave him a serious ear-scratching, then shook his offered paw.

"What brings you in on a Saturday, Karrin?" I asked, following her into the office.

"The embezzlement case for Flameout Steakhouse," Murphy said, heading for the coffee machine that sat between her office and Buffy's. I stayed near the lounge area at the center of the office so as not to give Mr. Coffee a case of the never-get-overs, and she came over to sit across from me after she'd started her coffee. "If I'm right, the guy who's behind it is doing his banking 'adjustments' on the Saturday deposits, since those are the second biggest of the week."

"Why the second… ah." I figured it out even as I spoke. "The biggest deposits— from Saturday and Sunday's business, so done on Mondays probably— would be more likely to be closely examined by the bosses, right?"

"Right," Murphy said, nodding. "We'll make a detective out of you yet, Harry."

"So this guy's just hitting the one restaurant, then?" I asked, ignoring her slur like a true gentleman.

"No, he's the area manager for all the locations south of the Eisenhower Expressway," she corrected me. "Six restaurants, total He's been pretty smart about it, mostly— less than five hundred bucks a week from the six restaurants total, at first. Then the last six weeks… he's gotten greedier. Over a thousand each week. If he'd stayed low, the owners might not have missed the money, but criminals are stupid— and he screwed up."

"So what are you going to do today, follow him?" I asked.

"Yes," she said, nodding. "He's doing the adjustments to the deposits and swiping the cash at his own house, the idiot— goes there after the last pickup, before going to the bank, cooks the books, pockets the cash, and takes the deposits in. I'm going to get photos of him going into his home with the deposit bags, complete with timestamps on the pics, then of him coming out. That and the fact that the owners have finally invested in a better computerized cash register system, are having the daily reports sent to their private emails, that'll give them enough to charge him, and our job is done— and the bill goes in."

"Computer stuff," I said, shaking my head. "Stars and stones, I'm glad I hired you, Karrin."

"Thanks," she said, and grinned. "I'm glad, too— I was going out of my mind with boredom.

"So, how'd your date go last night?"

"Fine, up until we were on our way home," I said, shaking my head. "Then… it went south, then back north, then decided to go all over the freaking map."

"Sounds like you'd better tell me about it," Karrin said, and stood. "Let me get a cup of coffee, first. You want one?"

"Please," I said. She got us both coffee, sat back down— and I told her everything that had happened from the time Buffy and I had left Mac's pub the night before right up until bedtime.

When I finished, Murphy looked at me long and steadily, then sighed. "Elaine… working for the Circle?" She shook her head. "Now… look, I don't want to put a great big burden on you, Harry, but after this, I think you need to ask yourself… how many members of the Circle are true believers… and how many have been manipulated like Elaine?"

I stared at her for a long moment, then licked my lips. "That's… a scary question, Murph— but thanks for asking it.

"I know Ebenezar wouldn't… do what has to be done if he wasn't _sure_ it had to be done, but I will mention it to him. He's got the skill to check it out, and he… well, Murphy, he doesn't really like playing the role he does for the White Council, he just knows that it has to be done, and that if he's doing it, it's being done right, so he keeps the job.

"I'll be more careful myself, and I will ask him about it— if I have to."

" 'If you have to,' what do you mean, Harry?" she asked, raising an eyebrow.

"He may bring it up, after I tell him about Elaine." I smiled a little. "He probably will, even. Like I said, he doesn't like having to be the Council's designated hardass."

"Given how powerful he is?" Murphy said, leaning back in her chair. "I'm glad as hell that he doesn't like it."

"Me, too." I stood and let out a sigh. "Okay, I'm gonna go see if I have _any_ dignity left in Buffy's opinion, or if Elaine has made it so that all she can do is laugh at me."

"My money's on left you some dignity." Murphy grinned at me cheekily and added, "She was ready to fight off a demon to try to warn you that you were in danger, Harry— I doubt she'd give Buffy _all_ the gory details."

"Good point," I said, nodding agreement. "There's hope after all. Thanks, Murph."

"No problem," She said, and watched me get to my feet and grab Mouse's lead to take him back outside and around to the stairs. "You need to be careful, Harry, until Mavra takes her shot— and we put her in the ground for it."

"To hell with that," I growled, remembering that she'd hired the man who'd shot me. "There's not going to be enough left of her to bury, Murph— I'm gonna incinerate that vampire _bitch_."

"Good idea," Karrin said, nodding approval. "Still— be careful. No going out alone after dark, Harry, and… wait. She's got one of those power-stone things. What if that lets her work magic that will shield her from the sun?"

I winced at that thought, but nodded. "Ouch— but thanks for thinking of it, Karrin. I'll be careful.

"But you need to be careful, too— she came at me through you once already, Karrin, she might do it again."

"If she comes after me, I'll give her a face full of crucifix," Karrin said, nodding and glaring at me a little. "And if she threatens me, or captures me— you'll do what, now?"

I recoiled a bit from that glare and said, "I'll do whatever the hell I have to in order to end the threat— short of anything that even might get someone else hurt."

"Good answer," Murphy said, and smiled. "I guess you did learn your lesson."

"I did," I said, heading for the door to the street. "Trust me, Murph— I won't be that kind of stupid twice."

"Okay," she said. "Watch your back, Harry."

"You, too." I went outside, and, true to my word, I stopped and looked around carefully. After a moment, I figured that if Mavra was watching me, or having a thrall do it, I wanted to know badly enough to take a risk, and I blinked slowly, activating my wizardly Sight as I did so.

The little chunk of the city that I could see transformed to a living creature in front of my eyes, with energy zipping here and there like nerve signals, pulsing down power lines, phone lines, even through the air. I could see the bright-and-dark figures of people around the area, could see water moving through pipes like blood through veins… it was kinda gorgeous.

Nowhere in the range of my Sight was there anything that had the concentrated blackness of an evil creature, or a thrall or Renfield of a Black Court vampire. I relaxed and took Mouse back to the apartment, where we sat down to watch old reruns of Underdog and Bugs Bunny cartoons until lunch.

At lunchtime, Buffy and Elaine came up to invite me to come down there. Elaine, who was a good cook, had made lunch. Judging by the kiss Buffy gave me as a greeting, either Elaine hadn't pulled out the Big Guns of Embarrassment, or Buffy had forgiven me for being a hopelessly machismo-overloaded little ass when I was a teenager. Neither of them mentioned any stories that had been told, and I slowly relaxed over the course of the meal.

After we'd eaten and cleaned up, we sat around talking— until I heard the elevator running and remembered that my grandfather was coming to talk to Elaine. I excused myself to go talk to him alone for a few minutes, told them I'd call down when they should come up, and ran up the stairs, arriving at my door just as the elevator behind me opened and Ebenezar stepped out, dressed in jeans and a flannel shirt and carrying his staff. The ordinary one, I mean, not the Blackstaff that was his badge of office, and that somehow absorbed the negative effects of what would normally be black magic, allowing him to do things no other wizard of the White Council could do.

"Hoss," he said by way of greeting. "You're looking pretty good— for a man who ignores his doctor's orders, and who's too damned stubborn to shout for help when he needs it."

"There wasn't a lot of choice, sir," I said with a sigh. "I didn't dare violate Nicodemus's terms blatantly, not with Hope and Maggie's lives on the line."

"No, I guess you couldn't," he admitted with a sigh. "Later, I'd like to hear how you did it, son. Killing Nicodemus? That's… well, boy, I reckon you got some bragging rights coming."

"Yes, sir," I said, ushering him inside. "I'll tell you about it later. But for right now… I need to tell you something else. You're… probably going to be angry with me, but that's okay— I'm kind of angry with me for not making certain connections a lot sooner than this, so I guess I deserve it."

We sat down in my kitchen, each of us with a can of Coke, and Mouse flopped on the floor beside me, his head across my feet.

"One thing I need to be clear about up front, sir," I said, taking a long, deep breath. "I never actually lied to you. For a long time, I didn't know the truth, and when I found out… well, you never asked. So I never had to lie to you, which… honestly, I don't know if I could."

"Not and get away with it, you couldn't," Ebenezar said, his voice perfectly level— no challenge, no threat, just a statement of fact. "Okay, Hoss. Tell me what I need to know."

"You remember the story of my fight with Justin DuMorne," I said, shuddering a little at that memory. "How things got… chaotic, and the fire… the house caught fire, and I thought… I thought I'd killed Elaine Mallory, accidentally."

"I remember," my grandfather said, his voice oddly gentle. "I remember that you felt so much worse about that than you did about killing DuMorne in self-defense…. Hoss, that's why Injun Joe voted with me for your innocence, he said. Because if you could be that hurt over someone dying on accident, dying over something that you couldn't have prevented without dying yourself… then you weren't even close to a warlock."

"That's… thank you for telling me that." I gulped, wondered why this was so hard to talk about, now that I knew I hadn't killed her. "But… sir, you remember when the Council pushed me into working for Mab, looking for who killed the Summer Knight to clear her of it?"

"Aye, I remember," he admitted, his eyes darkening. "I didn't like the way you got forced into working for her, Hoss. Didn't like it at all."

"I know," I said, and smiled a little. "But… well, sir, I was Mab's emissary. Titania had one, as well, and… and it was Elaine Mallory."

My grandfather's eyes widened a bit, and he nodded slowly. "I knew somethin' had happened, Hoss, when it was all over. You were… different."

"I guess I was," I admitted. "I don't think it was just Elaine— but she was part of it. That weight gone, and… a different weight in its place." Ebenezar raised an eyebrow, and I said, "She ran, faked her death and ran, because she thought I'd just… murdered Justin out of hand. And that I'd be coming for her. She'd been enthralled and wasn't thinking clearly, I know, but that still… it weighed on me, sir. Then at the end of things… I killed Aurora. Aurora, who had been Elaine's safe place to go to when she didn't have any others, who had helped her past all the things Justin did to her— and I killed her, too."

"Aye, I suppose that would weigh on a man." He sighed. "Why didn't she come forward then, Hoss? You could've brought her to us, made things right."

"She didn't want to," I admitted. "The White Council… Justin used them as a boogeyman for a long time, sir. I told you that. Well… I still feel that way about a lot of them, and she felt that way about the whole deal."

My grandfather nodded slowly and said, "I reckon I can see how she'd feel that way, son.

"What did she do after Aurora died?"

"She went west," I said, leaning back in my chair and shaking my head as I smiled a little. "She went west, and she got a job as a junior PI. Eventually, she got her license, opened her own agency— and advertised in the Yellow Pages under 'wizards.' "

My grandfather let out a startled guffaw of laughter at that, slapped the table and laughed out loud. That made the rest of it easier.

I told him about the case with the White Court killing off female practitioners of magic, and this time around (we'd discussed it before), I told him everything— Thomas's part in it, now that my grandfather knew who Thomas was to me, and to him, and about Elaine's involvement. I even told him the full story of Lash— and he understood right away, understood what that meant, who Lash really was, how she knew so much.

Then I told him about the night before— and he listened, didn't interrupt, didn't yell at me, just… listened. Took it all in, then sat back and nodded slowly, when I'd finished.

"Boy," he said, after a long moment of silence, "I ain't much good at discussing my feelings. Guess you know that. Guess you know that I love you, son— I ain't likely to say it much, maybe ever again, but it's the truth.

"But, Hoss, grandson and all, if you ever, _ever_ leave me in the dark about something this serious again, you'd better pray that it kills you. Because if it don't?

"I will whup your ass like you ain't never had it whupped before!"

"Yes, sir," I said meekly. "I told you you'd be mad, and right to be— and I meant it. I'm still mad at myself for not making all the connections sooner."

"All right, then, it's over— so long as it never happens again." He straightened up and met my eyes. "I can't take Molly's word on what was done to her, Hoss. Can't take Lash's word, even though she's a Knight of the Cross. I'll have to look Miss Mallory over myself, and Soulgaze her myself— but if everything's how they say it is… then I'm gonna keep my mouth shut about her. If that Soulgaze shows me what you seems to think it's gonna, I may even invite her to the Grey Council— but I won't tell the White Council about her, so long as she really was duped and manipulated."

"That will make this a lot easier on her, sir, thank you," I said. I met his eyes and added, "This means a lot to me, sir. I love Elaine— she was my first love, and I'll never stop loving her, though the love has changed. Now… she's my oldest friend, sir, and I… well, thanks."

"Oh, go on and call her and Buffy up here," Ebenezar said, waving a hand at me. His voice was gruff— but his eyes were sparkling with surprising good cheer.

I called downstairs, and Buffy and Elaine came up, Buffy in the lead, and half-tugging Elaine by the hand. Elaine looked frightened, but managed to bury it before she was introduced.

"Young lady, first let me tell you up front that I can't accept anyone else's word on what was done to you, or on what a Soulgaze shows you to be," Ebenezar said, holding on to her hand after they'd shaken. "But if my Sight shows me that Warden Carpenter had things right, and if you'll meet me in a Soulgaze, and what I see turns out to be what I've been told I will?

"Then the White Council never needs to know you're anything other than a practitioner who's just not quite strong enough for the Council."

Elaine's head snapped up, and she met the old man's eyes for a long moment— almost long enough to start the Soulgaze right there, but she let her eyes sag closed in relief before that actually started. "Thank you, Wizard McCoy. I'll cooperate with anything you need to do, sir— and I'll tell you everything that I know about the Circle."

"Then let's get started." He sat Elaine down at my kitchen table, and he started looking her over with his wizard's Sight, frowning a bit now and then, and a couple of times actually whistling in surprise. "Damn, I'd never have believed that anyone could do so much psychomancy to someone— and leave so little damage. Young lady, you got off mighty damned lucky— I wouldn't be surprised if you recover completely inside of a month or so, and I'd trust you at my back right now— leastways, I would if the Soulgaze shows me what I think it's gonna."

They did the Soulgaze right then and there, and when it was over, Elaine blurted, "You're related to Harry, aren't you, Wizard McCoy?"

Ebenezar blinked once in surprise, then nodded slowly. "Aye, that I am. I'm the boy's grandfather. We keep that mostly to ourselves, though— I'd appreciate you not mentioning it around anyone who don't live in this building.

"And I think, young lady, that I'd like it if you called me Ebenezar— that is, if you'll let me call you Elaine."

"Of course," Elaine said— and she smiled, really, truly smiled, for the first time since she'd woken up in my lab the night before. "Thank you, Ebenezar."

"You're more than welcome," Ebenezar said. "Also, you're no warlock, you're not crazy— and you risked dying to save the boy, there.

"I ain't about to tell the White Council about you, Elaine— but I'd like to offer you membership on a much smaller council of wizards, one that the White Council don't even know about. I'm a member, Hoss over there's a member—"

"And I'm a member, too," Buffy said. She grinned at Elaine and said, "He probably wouldn't have told you that without asking me, but I trust you."

"You're right, I wouldn't have said without asking," my mentor said. "But yes, Buffy's a member, too… we exist to oppose the Black Council, Elaine, the group that calls themselves 'the Circle.'

"I'd be pleased if you'd join us, young lady."

"I'm in," Elaine said immediately. "I'm in, sir.

"Now, I know a lot about them— shall I tell you now, or wait?"

"I think now," Ebenezar said. "You already gave me two very helpful pieces of information, Elaine— Captain Matelski of the Wardens and I arrested Adam Potter this morning, and then… well, I spoke to the Merlin, and then I confronted Gary Hudson while Arthur hid under a veil and watched. When Hudson tried to kill me, Arthur helped me stop him without havin' to kill him.

"That pretty much shot the hell out of the Merlin's belief that the Circle don't exist, that it's just been a series of individual lunatics. He's thinking about things, then the Senior Council will meet and decide what to do— but I ain't plannin' on revealing the Grey Council, even if Arthur does the smart thing and starts working on how to stomp the Circle into the ground. I figure an independent force, also working against the Circle? That's a great hole card."

"Okay, then let me tell you everything I know," Elaine said, dropping into a seat at my kitchen table. "It isn't much, dammit— but maybe it'll help you."

Elaine talked about the Circle 'til suppertime, took a break while we ate Thai food from a place that delivered, then talked for another hour after, before she finally ran dry of information.

When she finished with, "…then Molly managed to unscramble me some, and… well, you know the rest, sir," she seemed to be… lighter. Like some invisible weight had vanished from her shoulders.

"Yes, I do." Ebenezar looked at the several pages of notes that he'd taken, then looked up at Elaine and gave her a hard grin. "Young lady, when you said you knew a lot about the Black Council— I like Harry's name for them better than their name for themselves— you weren't just a'whistlin' Dixie. What I have here? It's gonna save lives, Elaine Mallory, and I thank you for that— and for startin' with savin' Hoss's life.

"Now, I'm goin' back to Edinburgh and puttin' this to use right away, but I want each and every one of you to be careful as Hell for a while— between Mavra havin' one of those damned Outsider-powered rocks and the Black Council likely lookin' to kill everyone in the damned building, well… you all be careful, that's all."

We all promised to be careful, and my grandfather got up to leave. He shook my hand, hugged Buffy, shook Elaine's hand, then went to the door. There, he stopped for a moment, looked back at the three of us and said, "If you see any sign of that Mavra creature, I damned well expect you to holler for help— all of you. I'll come a'runnin' if she shows up, you've my word on that."

"Yes, Ebenezar," Buffy and Elaine said together, while I said, "Yes, sir."

"All right then." Ebenezar smiled a little and said, "You be careful now," before he went out the door and down the steps.

He hadn't been gone for two minutes when there came a knock on the apartment door, and I went to see who was there. A glance through the peephole showed Molly, and I let her in.

"How'd it go?" she asked, not looking very worried— she trusted Ebenezar, and none of us looked upset.

We told her that things went fine, and Molly nodded, looked at Elaine and said, "Toldja so!"

We all chuckled, then Molly said, "It's too bad it took so long to tell Wizard McCoy everything— you guys missed seeing Dawn and Lash heading out for their date."

"Ah, I'll bet Lash blushed a lot when you saw them," Buffy said.

"No, just a little bit," Molly said, smiling. "She was too busy looking at your sister to blush a lot, and I have to admit… pretty much straight, me, but damn, they both looked hot enough to make me wonder just _exactly_ how straight I am."

Buffy laughed and said, "Yeah, I hate to admit it, but… Dawn's a looker. Just don't tell her I said so, please?"

The four of us sat around and talked, then actually played a couple of games of euchre before bedtime. Molly left about ten, and Elaine and Buffy went back down to Buffy's to crash a few minutes later. I was in bed by eleven, and I slept better than I had the night before, no nightmares that I could remember.

Sunday almost passed without any problems rearing their ugly heads. Buffy, Elaine, Dawn, Lash and I went to the Carpenters' for supper at Michael's insistence— he even sent Xander, just returned from his first actual mission as a Knight of the Cross, come over with Molly so he could drive us in Captain Midnight. (Elaine didn't drive, and no one wanted to let Buffy drive— she has a sense of humor about that, fortunately.)

Elaine rode in the back with Buffy, slouched way down, and if the Black Council was watching my place, looking for her, they didn't show their faces then. (Neither would I, with the four of us in the car— not without at least a platoon's worth of backup.)

Elaine got introduced to the Carpenters, and she took visible delight in the way the kids immediately took to her, ended up playing with them more than she did talking with us grown-ups, which pleased all of us— Elaine needed the relaxation, given all the crap she'd been through, and the kids? Yeah, they still felt the gap where their mother had been pretty sharply.

Xander drove Buffy, Elaine and I home about nine-thirty (Dawn and Lash decided to go to McAnally's for a while, took a cab to the pub)— or started to. We were ten blocks from the apartment when something just… appeared in the road in front of us, maybe sixty yards away.

Xander, a cautious driver, hadn't been going even the thirty miles an hour allowed by law, but a little less than that. He braked immediately (but not hard enough to make us skid), and we stopped in short order, still a good thirty yards from the slender figure in the road. I tried to get a good look at whoever it was—

—and every light for several blocks around us (including Captain Midnight's headlights, dammit) blew out at the same time, the bulbs actually bursting in showers of sparks that, in at least one case, started a fire in the display window of a shop we'd been near, a lady's clothing store.

The darkness that fell on the street was nearly complete, as there was no moon at all, and enough cloud cover that only a double handful of stars could be seen, despite the lack of light pollution.

"Back to Michael's?" Xander asked softly.

"We can try," I agreed from the passenger's seat, "but I've got a bad feeling about this."

"Me, too, Han," Buffy said from the back seat, her voice more worried than the joke would indicate. "The Black Council, do you think?"

I didn't get a chance to answer her. Xander had started a three-point turn to get us headed back to the Carpenters', and when the car was broadside to the figure that had appeared, a flash of ugly, red-purple light came from that direction— and very suddenly, the car flipped onto its side and skidded maybe fifty feet down the street, shedding paint and sparks as we went.

We came to a stop, and Xander said "Shit. Everyone okay?"

"Fine," I said, and started working the sling off of my arm. I was leaning almost completely against Xander, as we'd landed on the driver's side of the car. "Prop me up a second, would you? I want to get this sling off so I can fight."

"I've got your staff," Elaine said from the back seat. "Buffy?"

"I've got Amoracchius, Xander," Buffy said. "And the Scythe. I'll get out first, help the rest of you. Thank god for old cars being tough!"

Xander got me propped up enough to let me get the sling off of my right arm, and when that was done, Buffy had my car door propped open and she helped me out. I jumped to the ground, found Elaine staring in the direction of our attacker. She passed me my staff without a word, and a moment later, Xander and Buffy dropped to the street beside us.

We ranged ourselves in a line on the street, Xander on my left, Buffy on my right, and Elaine on her right, and we started walking by unspoken agreement, heading towards the place where our attacker still stood, a dark shape against a slightly lesser darkness, now that our eyes had adjusted.

We were maybe seventy-five feet away when the figure raised it's right hand and, without a word, called forth a light that, while bright, still seemed to be tinted that same red-purple as the light from the attack on us. It was bright enough to let me know that, as I had suspected, this wasn't the Black Council, or was only distantly them.

"Hello, Dresden," Mavra rasped. She wore her Shakespearean outfit, the one that made her look to me like she was dressed up to play Hamlet, and her dead, lank hair had been combed to hang over one eye, like that forties actress Veronica Lake. "It's time for you to die— and all your little friends with you!"

The red-purple stone in Mavra's left hand pulsed, and all hell broke loose.


	35. Chapter 35

Chapter 35

_Dream:_

She fell asleep in the early evening, watching some unbelievably stupid movie on Starz, and she had the strangest dream.

At first, it was the usual subconscious-mind-cleaning-the-shelves nonsensical thing— then, in the middle of a tea party with guests including her best friend, Julia, and Julia's boyfriend Lou, the cop who worked the beat around her apartment, the butcher from the shop where she got all her meat, a talking bear named Whiskey, Anthony Stewart Head, the actor who'd been Giles on Buffy the Vampire Slayer, James T. Kirk from the 2009 Star Trek movie, Mr. Spock from the original show, and (weirdest and most delightful) Kermit the Frog and Gonzo from the many and varied Muppet shows and movies.

She was listening to Kirk and Kermit compare the woes of being in charge of their respective groups when the woman came in and sat down right next to her.

Tall, slender (but very female), and graceful, her dark hair long and loose, falling down her back in a wavy cascade. Dark eyes, but bright with intelligence, set in a face that had the angular beauty of fashion model's, she bore a faint resemblance to a young Sigourney Weaver. The dress she wore seemed a bit old fashioned, hung to below her knees and had a modest neckline. She sat down and spoke immediately.

"Someone I care for is in trouble," the woman said, looking her right in the eyes. "I can't help, not from here. But you can, if you will."

"I… huh?" she said, confused. "I don't understand what you mean. Who's in trouble? How could I help? Who are you?"

"Once upon a day, a man saved your life," the tall woman said, meeting her eyes. "He saved your life, and you repaid him by foiling your parents' plan to get him in trouble. For that, I thank you.

"But he gave you another gift that night— and it could help you save his life tonight, if you're willing."

She blinked, thought for but a second, then said, "Harry Dresden? Is that who you mean?"

"Yes," the woman answered, and she smiled, though sadly. "Harry Dresden. He's in great danger, or will be— and you can help."

"Tell me what to do." She took a deep breath. "I'll help him."

"Thank you," the woman said. "Listen…."

The tall woman gave instructions, and she listened carefully, hoping against hope that she'd remember this when she woke up. Normally, her memories of her dreams were, at best, a jumbled mess of shadowy recollections.

"— and don't worry, you will remember," the woman finished. She smiled then, a wide, amused smile, this time, and looked at Kermit and Captain Kirk, still deep in conversation, while Gonzo played checkers with Mr. Spock. "At least the important parts. I hope you'll remember the rest— I like the way you dream, young lady."

"Thanks." She took a deep breath, then said, "Look, I have to ask— who are you? Why do you want to help him? I mean— well, I've learned enough over the years to be cautious, you know? So… I need to know who you are and why you want to help him."

The tall woman stood, smiled and nodded. "Good, you're cautious— I like that, and it will please Harry.

"My name is Margaret Dresden. I'm Harry's mother. I died a long time ago, so I can't act on the real world myself— I have to find others who can act for me. I… I've seen you before, here, and I know you remember my son, are grateful to him for what he did for you. Add in the gift he gave you and how it will help now….

"Thank you. For helping my Harry, thank you."

"You're more than welcome," she replied— and woke up on her own couch, slumped over sideways where she'd fallen asleep.

She stood, stretched to get the worst of the kinks out, and headed for her bedroom to get dressed— going to rescue a wizard in pajama pants and a Hello Kitty T-shirt just wouldn't do.

_Interlude:_

"Oh, man, Giles would so totally love this place," Dawn said as she looked around McAnally's Pub. "He hated bars— but he loved a pub, and this is definitely a pub."

McAnally's Pub contained many repetitions of the number thirteen, in order to break up the magical bleedover from the clientele. Thirteen stools at the bar, thirteen tables around the room, and thirteen high-set windows above ground level in order to allow light in. Thirteen mirrors had been placed on the walls to make it look more spacious. The thirteen columns that supported the ceiling were carved with scenes from different legends and folktales.

Lash, sitting happily against Dawn's side, smiled and nodded. "From what I know about him— mostly the show, Harry hadn't read the comics when I left his head— I'd have to agree. I like it myself, though I have to be careful how much I drink. Mac's beer is wonderful, but it's also rather strong, and my body has a low tolerance for alcohol."

"Your size probably has something to do with that," Dawn said, smiling. "You're smaller than Buffy, and I can't say that about too many people."

"I don't mind being small," Lash said. She tilted her head up and kissed the curve of Dawn's jaw lightly. "I'm just very glad that the body I chose for its emptiness and its power is one that's attractive."

"The word is 'gorgeous,' Lash."

"Thank you. You're more gorgeous, though."

A voice from beside their table interrupted their conversation, and both women glanced around at the stranger who said "Excuse me, are you Janet Lash and Dawn… uh, Sinclair?" She was staring at Dawn (though at least trying to hide it), who started blushing reflexively. "I'm sorry, I just… I was told that you could help Harry…."

"Harry— wait, what?" Dawn asked sharply.

"Perhaps you should sit down," Lash said, her voice calm, "and tell us your name, then tell us about Harry."

While the stranger hesitated, Dawn and Lash both looked her over. Dawn saw a woman about her own age, average height— five-five or so— with black hair, blue eyes, an all-American-girl-next-door beauty that was added to by the look of someone who smiled a lot, and a nice figure. She wore jeans and a denim jacket over— Dawn had to fight not to laugh— a Buffy the Vampire Slayer T-shirt. Of course, this contributed to her blush as well, when she realized that it was a whole-cast shot, and the actress who'd played her was on there….

Lash, though, used her wizard's sight, and saw that the girl was a practitioner of magic, not strong enough for the White Council, but strong enough to be potentially dangerous. However, there was no trace of blackness about her— she had never used black magic at all.

"I… yes." The young woman sat opposite them, and took a long, slow breath, seemingly trying to calm herself. "I'm sorry, this is just… you look a lot like Dawn Summers. Or the actress who played her, I guess, and after… after the dream I had, that's just a little too much weird…."

_Harry:_

Mavra followed her threat by raising one hand, pointing at a spot ten feet to her left, and saying a single word. The stone in her left hand pulsed once with red-purple light that reminded me of a blood blister— and suddenly, someone stood in that spot.

Well… some_thing_.

It stood maybe eight feet tall, was mostly humanoid, the form of a very muscular man, but it's head sported a pair of large, sharp, deer-like horns that sprouted from its head above its ears. It had skin the color of very old parchment, a peculiar yellow-brown, and its eyes were a vivid, glowing red— or at least one pair was. The other pair, set in its forehead above the red ones, were an all-too-familiar shade of green, the eyes of a fallen angel.

"Arahnaviel, here, has agreed to deal with the knight while I take care of the rest of you," Mavra said, her voice conversational. "That should keep the odds comfortable for me, don't you think?"

"Crap." I shook my head, then leaned back and looked past Buffy at Elaine. "Elaine, help Xander— that thing's not going to be expecting what you can do, and Xander's blade should bring it down to a level where you can affect it."

"On it," Elaine replied, and moved behind us to a place on Xander's right and slightly behind him. "Xander, I may not be Buffy—"

"Buffy trusts you," Xander interrupted, his voice level. "I'm not worrying, Elaine."

(Seriously, that guy should have been a motivational speaker. With seven words, he had Elaine ready to fight a fallen freaking _angel_. Add in the things he'd said to me when he told me about Buffy falling love with me, and I'm pretty sure he could blow the President's speech in Independence Day beat right out of the water.)

Buffy and I had kept moving towards Mavra, and were maybe thirty feet from her when she raised a hand, palm out. We stopped, and the vampire bitch cocked her head and said, "Rumor has it that you truly are who you appear to be, girl. Is it the truth?"

"One hundred percent pure slayer," Buffy said. "All the better to help Harry turn you into a small pile of ashes."

"We shall see."

Mavra pointed again, to her other side this time, and a half a dozen Black Court vampires appeared, each looking dry and zombie-like, which meant they were pretty old— so very powerful.

Might have been bad, even for Buffy, but Mavra, in preparing to handle my allies, forgot something very important.

_Me_.

I didn't even have to think about it, or use a lot of power. I just leveled my staff at the group and said, _"Fuego,"_ in a casual voice, deliberately didn't force the fire that I called forth into a tight beam, but let it fan out.

Six vampires burst into flame, then into hot ash, Buffy laughed aloud— and Mavra leveled her hand at me and snapped _"Tûzkár!"_

Fire washed from her hand, and I barely got my shield up in time to stop her from burning Buffy and I. The heat didn't make it through my shield, but it still unnerved me to see all that flame pouring out of the hand of a freaking vampire— and _at me_. After having my left hand burned nearly to the bone, well… I'm not going to feel bad about how much that fire, coming from the monster who'd engineered the burning of my hand scared me.

(At least, not _real_ bad.)

The jet of flame stopped, and I saw Mavra through the translucent blue-white dome of my shield. She was smiling— a horrific sight on its own— and she laughed as I stared at her.

"I have no fear of your favorite weapon, Dresden," Mavra rasped. "I have no _need_ to fear it, now.

"So tell me, little wizard… what do you think you're going to do to fight me now?"

"Well," I drawled, "I suppose I could just shoot you— not like I'm sure that would work, but it might— or I guess we could try settling this over a game of checkers. Loser lets the winner kill them, no resisting or fleeing?"

"I don't think so," Mavra said, cocking her head in what, on a not-corpse-like woman would have been a coquettish fashion. "Half the fun of killing you will be watching your agony as I kill your friends."

At that moment, I heard Elaine cry, in a voice like bells in the wind, "FULMINARIS!" There followed a brilliant flash of green-white light and a crackling, followed instantly by a thunderclap.

"Nice shot, Elaine!" Xander cried over the pained roars of the Denarian Arahnaviel.

"I don't think I'd bet on that… Mavra, isn't it?" Buffy said from beside me. "You'll lose, which would suck for you— for the two seconds you'll have between losing and dusting, anyway."

"_Sajtoló!"_ Mavra snapped as she shoved a palm at Buffy.

Something hit Buffy hard, something big— but invisible. She flew back maybe thirty-five feet, hit the street, rolled and came up on one knee, left hand bracing herself, her right holding the Scythe out to one side. I could see that she had a slight bloody nose, but past that, she looked fine.

"So all you can do is copy Harry's tricks, is that it?" Buffy called as she straightened. "Sorry, honey— not impressed!"

I had taken advantage of the moment while Mavra watched Buffy to move back a few steps, and off to Mavra's right. I wanted her to have to watch me and Buffy, not be able to watch Xander and Elaine's fight at all— that might give one or the other of them a shot at Mavra's back.

In the meantime, Buffy was heading back towards Mavra at a slow walk— something I'd seen her do before, on the TV screen, strolling casually, some swagger to it, some sex to it, and a _lot_ of menace— if you knew what to look for. Apparently, Mavra didn't.

"You bore me," Mavra said, and again gestured Buffy's way, this time a flick of her first two fingers. _"Nyílvesszõ!"_

Something that looked like an arrow of that damned red-purple light leapt from her fingers, streaked towards Buffy— and past her as the slayer leaned out of the way so fast that it reminded me of the bullet-dodging Agents in the Matrix.

Mavra seemed distracted as she repeated the spell, tried to track Buffy— so I took the moment to attack her myself. I figured she'd demonstrated her immunity to fire, so I went with my other favorite attack, leveled my staff in her direction, aimed at her neck, and pictured a super-thin, super-strong plane of force in my head.

"_Forzaré!"_ I snapped, and sent my will through the staff.

It hit dead on target— and I went staggering backwards as the force-blade stopped dead a good inch from Mavra's skin, but the pressure of the spell went on pouring out for a split second. I recovered quickly, muttered a couple of choice swears under my breath, and changed tactics.

I aimed at the street around Mavra's feet, gathered up my will, added a dash of Soulfire to make sure that the spell continued long enough to have the effect I desired, and growled "Fuego!" Fire lashed out, encircled Mavra's feet, and set the asphalt of the street on fire. Mavra ignored this— which was fine with me.

What wasn't fine with me was the way she snarled _"Átúszás,"_ and a thick bolt of that damned bruise-colored light leapt from her hand to my shield— and stuck to it.

Then I felt the shield begin to… well, it started to fail, to disintegrate, from the outside in. If I dropped the shield, I had no doubt that the stuff would fall onto my arm— and disintegrate _it_.

Uh-oh.

_Interlude:_

Dawn opened the door to the lab apartment with the key Harry'd given her, and headed for the bedroom at the back of the place. This was going to be awkward, maybe— there had been an introduction, sure, and Harry had explained what was coming, but there hadn't been time for her to actually start yet. Still, Margaret had said that this needed to be done, and Dawn did believe that it had been Harry's mother who had sent the messenger to her and Lash.

She entered the back bedroom, turned found the candle and matches on the little table right beside the door, and lit the former. In the dim light of the candle, she looked at the long table that stood a few feet from her, and at the bleached human skull on the end farthest from her, sitting there between several tall stacks of romance novels.

She took a deep breath, held it for a moment, then said in a clear voice. "Bob, wake up. Harry's in trouble."

The skull's eye sockets lit up with orange light, and it turned some on the table so that it was facing her. "Hmm? What? What did you— oh! Hello, _gorgeous_ lady! Is it time to begin working on that critter database? Pull up a chair, unbutton a couple of buttons, and we can get right down to…" One eye socket went out for a moment, as though the skull had winked. "…_business._ Heh!"

"Bob." Dawn took a deep breath, held it for a moment, then let it out slowly. The first time she'd met him, the intellect-spirit's blatant lechery had been funny, but she didn't have time to deal with it now. "Listen to me: Harry is in trouble. In _danger_."

The skull shook back and forth rapidly, and Bob's voice lost the flirtatious tone. "What sort of trouble?"

"Mavra's after him, and she's got an outsider-powered stone to augment her wizardry," Dawn said. "We don't know where he is just yet, Lash is trying to find that out. But Harry's mother sent a message, and she said that we'd have to take you if everyone was going to… 'to get the best ending.' "

"Harry's mother is dead," Bob said slowly.

"She sent a message through a dream, sent it to a girl Harry helped once a long time ago. She said to tell you that she knows that Harry got you from Justin, who stole you from Kemmler— and that she agrees with you and Harry, you're a lot nicer now." Dawn shook her head. "Bob, please— we don't know how much time we've got."

The skull let out a sound like a sigh. "I can't help without knowing the problem, Dawn— and for that, I'd need to see what's happening to Harry."

"As soon as we figure out where he is, you go take a look," Dawn said.

"I can't," Bob said. "I'm not allowed to leave my skull without permission—"

"You have permission to leave the skull to help Harry," Dawn said. She then added hastily, "But you have to come back as soon as Harry's safe."

"I have to have _Harry's_ permission," Bob said. "I'm sorry, but it's a part of the enchantment. I can't leave the skull without his permission."

"Crap!" Dawn said, and ran her hands through her hair. "Harry's mom had to know that, so what—"

"I don't know," Bob said. He let out an exaggerated sigh and added, "I certainly can't tell you to just _take the skull with you_ when you go. I can't do that. Of course, I couldn't exactly stop you, either…."

"Bob you're a genius!" Dawn said, and scooped up the skull before running out of the room and down to her apartment to gear up.

"No." Bob sounded satisfied as hell as he protested. "No, don't. I can't go with you. Really. It's not allowed.

"Oh, darn, I guess I'm going with you."

Lash was just coming out of the apartment across from Xander's when Dawn got down there.

"Murphy will meet us there, and she's calling Molly," Lash said, shrugging to settle her chainmail— given to her by Michael, cut down from an old suit of Charity Carpenter's— as she followed Dawn into her apartment. "She found out where, roughly— there's an eight-block area of town that's blacked out, no known reason, she said Harry's probably at the middle of that. Our new friend seems to know the city very well, I'm sure she can find it."

"Right," Dawn said, and set Bob's skull down on the kitchen counter. "Lash, this is Bob. Bob, Lash. You guys talk while I get my stuff."

"Hiya, toots," Bob said, grinning. "Last time I saw you, you were living in Harry's head. I have to say… I like the new chassis much better, you're _quite_ the little hottie!"

Lash rolled her eyes and sighed.

_Harry:_

I needed to think of something fast. Mavra had gone back to playing dodge-the-magic-attacks with Buffy, but if she turned her attention back to me, I'd be screwed. And I'd be screwed if I didn't figure out how to get her clingy-disintegration spell off of my shield before it at through the construct— and started eating through me.

"This started off as such a good day, too," I complained as I looked at the bloody-bruise-colored gelid light that clung to my shield. It was starting to run down towards the bottom of the shield, too— great, now I had to watch my feet, t—

Wait a second— hello, solution!

Quickly, because the stuff was about to drip off of the edge of my shield, I turned my arm so that the shield was parallel to the ground, not perpendicular to it in front of me. The drop of disintegrating force that had been about to fall off of the bottom of my shield oozed away, and back towards the center of the slightly-curved disc of energy. I glanced at Mavra, but she was still flinging spell-arrows at Buffy, who was still dodging them easily, so I turned my eyes back to the shield and it's covering of disintegrating energy, and as soon as the stuff had cleared away from the edge of the shield all the way around, I shifted a little to make sure the edge of the energy was well away from my side— and I dispersed my shield. The Jell-O-like energy of Mavra's spell dropped to the ground, started eating the asphalt— and none of it splashed on me.

"What the— Dresden, you bastard!"

I looked at Mavra and saw that my little plan had worked; the asphalt around her feet had melted under my fire spell, and she had, while engaged with trying to take Buffy out, sunk into the thick, tarry substance— making it a lot more difficult for her to move.

Buffy took advantage, did that thing where she blurs, and got Mavra across the neck with the Scythe.

The weapon _bounced_.

Mavra's hand flashed out, and Buffy went sailing, tumbling through the air with loose limbs— but she held on to the Scythe, which let me know that she might be stunned, but she wasn't unconscious.

"Hey!" I snarled, and Mavra's head whipped back towards me. "That happens to be the lady I love, _bitch!"_

I reached out and did that reverse fire thing for a moment, my left hand, fingers spread, pointed at the melted asphalt at Mavra's feet. My staff I laid across my left arm, aimed at the huge, yellow-brown form of the Denarian that Xander and Elaine where facing.

"Xander, Elaine— incoming!

"FUEGO!"

The bolt of fire that I produced, despite not having put a lot of actual magic into the spell, was pretty prodigious— as big around as my thigh, a bright yellow-orange, and apparently enough to actually set the Denarian's skin on fire.

The monster howled in agony— and Elaine cried "FULMINARIS!" again, sent a lightning bolt from her chain-focus at the creature, hit him dead center in the chest. I saw Xander moving in, but couldn't watch, as Mavra had begun chanting in whatever language she used for magic, and I needed to get my eyes on her.

I did glance around for Buffy, saw her sitting in the doorway of a nearby shop, leaning against the door and breathing hard. She sent me a thumbs up, and I nodded at her— I hoped she was just winded, but couldn't take the time to be sure right now— and turned back to Mavra, now standing with her feet embedded to a couple of inches above the ankles in asphalt.

She finished the spell she was doing— a long, complicated one, which made me _very_ nervous, given the power she had access to through the stone in her left hand— and a bit of blackness, edged in that disgusting, blood-blister light, formed in the air in a foot or so in front of the vampire bitch. It was maybe the size of a tennis ball at first, but it rapidly grew to almost as big as a basketball before the red-purple light vanished from around it, leaving only solid blackness behind. At first I just… stared at the ball of darkness, unsure what to think— and then I heard the hissing, crackling noise that came from it. Tentacle of blackness oozed out from the sphere, and I yelped in _abject terror_ as I leapt backwards.

Mavra had called forth Mordite. Deathstone. A piece of matter from the universe where Outsiders live, a place so anathema to our universe that anything caught in the energy field surrounding the Deathstone (which, given the size of the sphere, probably wasn't a lot bigger than a kid's superball) was simply destroyed. Most magics couldn't affect it, and I didn't know any of those that did.

I backpedaled furiously, thinking, or trying to, and coming up with nothing. The Mordite sphere followed me at a much slower pace— until Mavra visibly concentrated, at which point it accelerated to keep the forty feet or so I'd opened between me and the sphere. At least it wasn't gaining….

As soon as I thought that, it accelerated a little. Then more.

Then I tripped over something in the street, and the Mordite sphere was coming at me as fast as a jogging man— and I had no way to stop it.

_Interlude:_

They penetrated the blacked out section in the messenger's car, a big, old Mercedes-Benz, a seventy-one, the girl had said. It kept on running, and Dawn, sitting in the back seat behind Lash, who sat in the passenger's seat, let out a sigh of relief.

"Oh," Lash said suddenly, sitting up very straight suddenly. "Thank you.

"Turn left at the next corner, then the next right after that." Lash smiled. "That will let us approach from behind Harry's car, and reduce the chances that we'll be seen. Especially if you douse your lights now, Miss."

"All right," the young woman replied even as she slowed, doused her headlights, and made the turn. "What kind car is it? It will have to be big to hide this boat."

"A nineteen-thirty-nine Packard," Dawn said from the back seat. "You could hide some locomotives behind it, I think."

"It's… on it's side," Lash said with a wince. "Mavra knocked it over, but no one was hurt."

"Um, can I ask where you're getting your information?" their driver asked. She didn't sound worried so much as curious.

Lash turned to look at the woman, smiled brilliantly— and pointed a single finger straight up. When the driver only raised an eyebrow, Lash said softly, "I am a Knight of the Cross. I bear the sword _Fidelacchius,_ and my information comes from the Lord."

"A Knight of— oh." The woman jerked her eyes back to the road. "I meant no disrespect— I just didn't realize that you were a Knight of the Cross."

"No disrespect was perceived," Lash said easily. "Relax, you are helping us and our friends."

"And you're just gorgeous." Bob spoke from the back seat, where his skull rested next to Dawn's leg. "Seriously, Harry needs to introduce me to all his female friends, if you're all _this_ hot!"

"Harry's not exactly a friend," the driver said, smiling and blushing. "I haven't seen him in fourteen years, after all. But he saved my life, taught me that magic was real… I've never forgotten that, or stopped hoping for a chance to repay him."

"Bob," Dawn said in a warning tone, "don't make me tell Harry that you were being rude to the lady who told us he's in trouble."

"I'm not being rude, I'm paying her a compliment," Bob protested. "How is it rude to let someone know that they're so attractive that all you can think about is how much you'd like to see them na—"

"Bob!" Dawn snapped. "Enough! One more word, and I come to our monster-info sessions wearing a nightgown and robe from the seventeen hundreds!"

Bob fell silent, and the driver chuckled, then said, "There's the car. I'll stop here, and you two can… do what you do. I need to wait a bit before I make my appearance— Harry's mother's ghost told me my cue, and she's been so dead-bang-on that I'm going to play this her way."

The old Mercedes rolled to a quiet stop, and the three women got out and moved to where they— and Bob, looking out from his skull-home— could assess the situation.

Almost immediately, Lash hissed in a mixture of anger and fear and said quietly, "Arahnaviel— Xander and Elaine will need my help. I'll go down the alley, come in from the side, so Mavra doesn't look this way.

"Good luck, both of you. Dawn… be careful, please?"

"I will," Dawn said. "Fight smart, honey."

"I will." Lash kissed Dawn's cheek briefly, then moved away from the car and into an alley nearby, started moving swiftly to a point where she could come in not just from a direction that wouldn't give away the position of the other three, but that would let her come in behind the Denarian that Xander and Elaine were fighting.

Dawn peeked up over the side— well, top, since it was on its side— of Captain Midnight, gathered what she could about the battle, then held Bob's skull up so that he could see.

"Oh, damn, that's Mavra all right," the intellect spirit muttered. "And there's Buffy, she's getting up, she must be okay. There's Harry, but what's that— oh, crap! That's Mordite! Deathstone! It'll kill him for sure if— Mavra's controlling it! We have to distract her! Hurry!"

"Okay," Dawn said, her voice level. "One distraction, coming up."

Dawn set Bob down on the unbroken rear-passenger's side door window and moved to the rear of the car. She looked around, got her bearings— and unslung the military weapon that she'd hung onto after the rescue of the warden trainees from the Black Council, ran the charging handle to chamber a bullet, and crouched, aiming from one knee. Sanya had zeroed the sights for her, taught her more about shooting, before he'd left Michael's, and she thought she could make this shot. She was only fifty yards or so from Mavra, and the aura of grotesque light around the vampire was bright enough to sight on without being bright enough to make her squint.

She took the shot, and the bullet struck Mavra in the shoulder, staggered her, nearly knocked her to the ground, since she hadn't freed her feet yet.

The vampire staggered, that was all— but the ball of blackness that had been charging for Harry slowed to a snail's pace while still maybe ten feet from him.

"Good enough," Dawn breathed. She moved back behind the car and said, "Okay, Bob— what can you tell me about that Mordite-Deathstone stuff?"

"I can tell you that it's immune to every kind of magic that Harry knows," Bob said, his voice low and fearful. "It's immune to almost all kinds of magic— and Harry's not advanced enough to have learned the sort of thing that _will_ affect it, not yet.

"I don't know if he can survive— if we can't do something to Mavra."

_Harry:_

I didn't have time to look around for who shot Mavra, but I was grateful as hell— Mordite stopped moving towards me at more than a crawl, at least for a moment.

Mavra recovered quickly— but before she could take control of the Mordite again, there came a sort of whirring noise, and a piece of broken glass (probably from one of the broken shop windows— a few had gone when the electronic elements of their displays had blown) hit her in the neck, shattered, but didn't even scratch her.

"Hey, Mumm-Ra," Buffy called. "Heads up!"

This time, the whirring sound was higher pitched, almost a whistle— and a hubcap hit Mavra in the head. The vampire actually fell, this time, and Buffy, who'd been throwing from forty feet off or so, again did her impression of the Road Runner. She didn't bother with the Scythe, this time, just leaped up, tucked and rolled in the air— and hit Mavra square in the face with both boots.

Mavra wasn't overly bothered by that, not physically— the magical force field she had going added to her own Black Court Rukh status made it very unlikely that Buffy could actually hurt her, at least until the field came down— but she went batshit anyway.

"You DARE!" Mavra screamed from her prone position. "You DARE to attack me so! YOU WORTHLESS LITTLE _BITCH,_ I WI—"

There came another gunshot, this one from a different direction, I was pretty sure, and a dark spot appeared exactly in the center of Mavra's forehead. It wasn't a hole— it was a flattened bullet, and only one person I knew was good enough to have such excellent placement.

"Hello, Murph," I muttered as I crabbed my way backwards, away from the Deathstone sphere, unwilling to look around for where Murphy was shooting from while that thing was still in existence. "I don't know how you found out or found us— but holy _shit,_ I'm glad you're here!"

Which is when the other half of our reinforcements made itself known.

Brilliant white light speared down from the sky, a narrow beam that was just exactly big enough at ground level to surround Mavra's prone form. As the vampire shaded her eyes and looked up for the source of the light, a HUGE voice boomed forth, seemingly from the air all around.

"VAMPIRE," it said in deep, stentorian tones that literally made the ground vibrate, "YOU HAVE GONE TOO FAR! NOW… YOU FACE _**JUDGMENT!"**_

Mavra made some incoherent sound, something that spoke of fear— and I fought off a sudden burst of laughter as I figured it out. That wasn't God, or any other higher power….

"Margaret Katherine Amanda Carpenter," I said, very, very softly, "I'm going to have to start paying you, just so I can give you a raise!"

The voice went on, accusing Mavra of thousands of murders, the corruption of thousands of souls, the destruction of families, of minds— I was half expecting to hear Molly's illusory godlike voice accuse Mavra of jaywalking, but the kid kept it more believable than that.

Mavra was distracted, the Mordite had drifted to a stop. I got to my feet and moved a little to one side, so that I had a line of sight on the vampire bitch, and went over the magic I knew in my head. I didn't find anything useful before Buffy, seeing Mavra staring upwards with her mouth open, decided that some targets were too tempting to pass up.

Buffy grasped the Scythe by the grip behind the weapon's head and the middle of the haft— and tried her very best to shove the wooden stake on the end of the handle down Mavra's throat.

It might have succeeded, but the pain or something snapped Mavra out of her shock and awe. She jerked one foot out of the now-solidified asphalt that held them both— and kicked Buffy away from her, sent her flying through the air almost down to where Captain Midnight lay on his side in the street.

Then, ignoring the light and the voice, Mavra jerked her other foot free and stood up. She stepped out of the circle of light, and when it took a couple of seconds to re-acquire her, she sneered and called, "Enough, Wizard Carpenter— I have recovered from the shock, and am no longer fooled!"

Crap.

Molly's light-and-sound show faded away— and another bullet struck Mavra, this time in her left eyebrow. Her head jerked and she laughed. "Please, _Miss_ Murphy! Bullets cannot stop me!"

(Wherever she was hiding, I knew that Mavra's emphasis on the "Miss" there had probably made Karrin furious. Mavra sure knew how to push buttons….)

Buffy strolled back up the street like she hadn't a care in the world, stopped some thirty feet to my left, and said, "So, Mumm-Ra, what's next? You gonna demonstrate the power of your mind and figure out that the guy you're attacking is actually a wizard? Or maybe prove your intellect by telling us that this is Chicago?"

Mavra glared hatred at Buffy (who maybe knew how to push buttons as well as Mavra, now that I thought about it), raised a hand—

"NO!" roared a voice from off to my left. "Not another of you!"

White light had flared a second before the shouted "NO," and I looked that way to see that Lash had shown up to join Xander and Elaine against the Denarian critter they were fighting.

"MAVRA!" The Denarian yelled, "I DID NOT AGREE TO THREE AGAINST ONE!"

"Idiot," Mavra muttered. She raised a hand, snarled _"Lelki fejsze!"_

A bolt of bloody-bruise-colored light, a broad, flat, blade-looking thing, streaked off of Mavra's hand, flew towards the other battle so fast that neither Buffy or I even managed to shout a warning before it struck Elaine in the back, a little above waist height—

—and cut her completely in two.


	36. Chapter 36

_Okay. Here it is, the last (rather longer than usual, even) part of this story. I wrote this in a white heat, and in less than seven hours. Forgive any typos, please?_

_For the epilogue, I stepped well away from Jim Butcher's methodology— because there were ideas I had that I wanted to share with you people, and no way to do other than to be me, not me-being-Jim-Butcher for a while. Hope you don't mind._

_Thanks, everyone, for your comments and support!_

_Harry:_

For a long moment, no one moved, no one spoke. Xander, Lash, Buffy and I— all of us that I could see right then— could only stare at the two pieces of a human body that had, until a couple of seconds before, been Elaine Mallory, the first real friend I ever had, the first person I'd ever loved besides my father, my first romantic love, first lover, first— first _everything_.

"No!" I barely managed to whisper the word, because I suddenly couldn't breathe. "No, you… Elaine, you can't…."

Then the anger hit me, and I could breathe, could draw in the breath to scream.

"_**ELAINE!"**_ I cried.

I whirled towards Mavra even as Buffy snarled something wordless and stepped in close to the vampire bitch, grabbed her by the collar with both hands, spun her once for momentum, then threw her up in the air.

The night that Michael Carpenter had been crippled, the night I thought he'd been killed, I loosed the most powerful blast of fire I'd ever thrown, and I did it without staff or blasting rod— just me, my magic, and the sheer, blind fury I felt at the woman who had, I thought, just murdered my friend, and one of the best men I have ever known. That blast of fire had been blue-white, and barely bigger around than the two fingers that I'd used to project.

I'd been fighting with my staff alone, not wanting to have to switch back and forth between it and blasting rod, since the staff was a decent tool for fire.

As Mavra flew up into the air, I dropped my staff and reached into my duster, drew forth my blasting rod. I wanted the extra power I could get from it right now, needed that power, because I needed— more than I had needed anything since I needed to rescue Maggie from the Red Court— I needed to make Mavra hurt. I didn't think I could kill her, not this way, not with the power she had through that damned outsider stone, but I knew, right then, that I could hurt her.

Even while I'd been dropping my staff and drawing my blasting rod, I'd been gathering my will, shaping it, refining it, refining the power it would drive. Now I aimed the rod at the place where I could see that Mavra would fall, and I held my will, my magic, my pain and hate and rage— I held them ready and I waited.

Mavra fell to the ground before me, maybe eight feet away, landed on her right side, her body facing towards me. I aimed my blasting rod at the place where he blackened, shriveled heart should be, and I unleashed my spell.

"PYROFUEGO!" I screamed, and I slammed my will and my magic through the blasting rod.

The beam of fire that shot out at Mavra's chest was so brilliant a white that it dazzled the eyes— despite being no bigger around than a heavy needle, one meant for hand-stitching denim, maybe.

That beam of pure, rage-driven fire hit Mavra in the chest— and I held it while she sneered up at me from the ground, maintained the hate, the will, the magic.

Very suddenly, Mavra screamed as her tunic caught fire under the place where my blast hit her force field.

In a blind panic, Mavra rolled away from me, dropped her force field and rolled away, trying to smother the flames by pressing her chest to the asphalt.

Buffy kicked her in the ribs, sent her flying, but it was too late— the fire was out.

By the time she hit the ground again, Mavra's force field had been restored, but I didn't care. I had hurt her, had scared her, and never mind the damned power boost she had going for her. For now, that was enough.

Mavra, who had landed on her back this time, and almost back at her original position in the street, got up quickly. She turned to stare hatred at me, and I gave back as good as I got.

"I am going to kill you," I said slowly and clearly. "Nothing will stop me, not even my own death, you fucking leech. I don't care if I have to become a warlock to do it, or if I have to go beat that Denarian down myself and take up his coin.

"I am _going_ to kill you."

"No, you really aren't," Mavra said, sounding amused. "You had your moment, Dresden— and now it's passed.

"Goodbye, wizard."

Mavra began speaking, and I hit her with another blast of fire. She didn't even notice— I couldn't sustain the rage that had given me enough power to get through her defenses, so I needed another approach.

"HARRY!" someone yelled from behind me. "LOOK OUT!"

I spun around to see that the person who'd yelled was Dawn, who stood at the back end of the tipped-over Captain Midnight. She was pointing at the sphere of Mordite, which I'd forgotten about— but which was now moving towards me again.

Even as I started to turn back to face Mavra, I heard that vampire bitch let out a squawk of surprise, and I saw the Mordite sphere again slow down.

I finished my turn, found that Buffy had picked up my staff, shoved it between Mavra's legs, and run in a fast circle, knocking Mavra to the ground again. Even as I finished my turn, Buffy tossed me my staff, and I stuffed my blasting rod in a duster pocket as I caught it. Buffy snatched the Scythe up from where she'd set it while she borrowed my staff, and took a step towards Mavra.

Mavra glared up at Buffy and snarled, "You are becoming an annoyance!

"Very well. First the old girlfriend— now the new!"

"MOVE!" I yelled, and Buffy threw herself into this sort of a spin, her torso dipping towards the ground, her legs coming up and her whole body corkscrewing sideways while parallel to the ground.

Mavra had sent a bolt of force at Buffy, a bolt like the one that had killed Elaine, but it missed, and I used the opportunity to give Mavra a little present. I figured she might have put her force field back up in a hurry, since she'd been badly burned, and either I was right or she just needed to be upright for certain effects to work.

I leveled my staff at Mavra's center mass and said, "Forzaré!"

Mavra skidded away like a hockey puck kicked by an NFL quarterback. Or something.

She ended up fetched up against the side of a parked car, and Buffy came to stand beside me.

"What now, Harry?" Buffy asked.

"I don't know." My voice came out harsh and raspy. "I can't think of a way to stop her, Buffy, let alone actually kill her."

"We'll think of something," she said, her voice quiet. "Harry… I liked Elaine. A lot. So I'm right there with you.

"Whatever it takes, we kill Mavra. Now. Tonight."

I nodded, tried to think of a way to do it— when Bob shouted across the battlefield and gave me a possible answer.

_Bob:_

"Let's see," Bob muttered to himself as he watched Buffy make Mavra crazy by dodging her, and the boss send the evil bitch skidding across the street into a car. "Lightning she'll be ready for. Fire… I doubt Harry can hurt her with it again unless she kills someone else, and I know Harry's not about to let that happen… there has to be something I'm missing."

"Think fast, Bob," Dawn said. She ignored the tears on her face, just watched for a chance to distract Mavra or otherwise help. "This is getting ugly."

"It passed ugly a while back," Bob muttered. He turned sideways, glanced at the woman who'd warned Dawn and Lash, who now knelt at the other end of the car. She was whispering a prayer for the dead from one of the old religions, one many wizards and other practitioners believed in. Bob didn't know if it would do any good for Elaine Mallory's soul, but he appreciated the gesture on Harry's behalf. "This is at least as ugly as that mess in Kiev where Harry had to kill all the Outsiders, even if there aren't as many combatants and oh, good grief I'm an IDIOT! Harry's an idiot! We're _all_ a bunch of idiots!"

"Bob, whatever it is, tell Harry!" Dawn ordered.

Obligingly, Bob yelled, "HEY! BOSS! WE'RE AN IDIOT!"

Dawn sighed and pinched the bridge of her nose between two fingers.

_Harry:_

"HEY! BOSS! WE'RE AN IDIOT!"

I glanced over my shoulder, saw Bob sitting on the back passenger door of the tipped-over Captain Midnight, his eyelights bright with excitement.

"HARRY!" Bob shouted, and spun a little so that the orange beams from his eyelights rested on the momentarily still Deathstone sphere. "YOU KNOW WHAT THAT IS, HARRY!"

"It's Mordite, Bob!" I called back. "Deathstone. I'll deal with it after—"

"NO, YOU IDIOT!" Bob yelled at the top of his voice. "THAT'S AN _**OUTSIDER,**_ HARRY!"

It took me a second to get it— then I almost let myself hope. "It's not alive, Bob!"

"WHO CARES!" Bob cried. "IT'S FROM THEIR UNIVERSE, SO IT'S AN OUTSIDER SO FAR AS YOUR POWER IS CONCERNED!"

Holy shit. If Bob was right— hell there was one easy way to find out. I leveled my staff at the hissing, crackling, tentacle-studded sphere of blackness and sent a pulse of will through the wood with a muttered "Forzaré."

The Mordite sphere moved maybe a foot back from where it had been— and I knew that Bob was right, that this could be beaten.

"Holy crap," I muttered. "Buffy, we have a chance!"

"I knew that," Buffy said calmly. "So what's—"

A gunshot interrupted her, and I glanced around to see Mavra stumble to the ground again, managed a small smile, and called, "Nice shooting, Murph!"

Then I heard a horrible cacophony, a mix of every sound that goes through the nervous system of human beings like a frozen scalpel, and I glanced over my shoulder to see Arahnaviel, the Denarian monster that Lash and Xander were still trying to deal with, covering his ears and doubling over.

"Likewise, Jedi Carpenter!" I called, then looked back at Buffy. "Listen, do you know where Karrin is?"

"Yes, I have her picked out," the slayer said, looking up at me. "What's the play, Harry?"

"Get to Murphy, tell her to concentrate her fire on the hand that Mavra's holding that Outsider-stone in." Buffy grinned suddenly, and I nodded. "If she drops it, we unleash on her. I take the first shot, you go in after, nail her once, then get clear for my second shot, and so on— until that murdering _bitch_ is nothing but ashes and a bad memory!"

"Good plan," Buffy said, and nodded. "Okay, let's—"

"GIVE UP YOUR COIN!" Xander bellowed. "We have proven that we can end you, so just for the love of god, GIVE IT UP!"

"I CAN'T!" cried a voice, higher and more desperate than that of the Denarian, and I knew I was hearing the voice of the host body. "I can't, he won't let me!"

"It's not his choice!" Xander said. He stepped closer, keeping Amoracchius between him and Arahnaviel's form. "The choice is yours, it's always been yours— if you choose to drop the coin, he can't stop you!

"Please. I don't want to have to kill you.

"Drop it."

Suddenly, the Denarian stood up straight and started clawing at his chest. "No!" cried the host's voice. "No, you lied! You LIED! I won't do this, I _WON'T!"_

A patch of skin came loose, and by the light of the holy blades I saw something drop from the middle of the demonic form's chest— and immediately, the form dwindled to that of a man, so fast that it almost seemed instantaneous. Even as Lash moved to take the coin, unfolding one of the silver-trimmed, white, blessed kerchiefs that would enable her to do so without risking possession, I looked back towards Mavra.

She was staring across the way at the two Knights of the Cross, Xander now moving to hug the man who had given up Arahnaviel, her eyes wide with realization and fear.

"Go," I said to Buffy. "Move it, she may try to escape now that she's got two Knights to deal with on top of the rest of us."

Buffy turned and ran down the street, and Mavra turned to her.

"SLAYER!" Mavra screamed. "YOU WILL DIE NOW!"

With that, she pulled something about the size of a baseball from a pouch on her belt and threw it at Buffy.

Buffy didn't think, she just caught the white, faceted stone— some sort of crystal, though I don't know what kind— in her left hand just before it hit her in the face.

Immediately, Buffy froze in place, staring at the now-glowing, faceted sphere in her hand. I saw a tiny spot of darkness appear on the side that rested against her palm, and I yelled, "BUFFY! DROP THAT THING! NOW!"

"I CAN'T!" she cried. "I CAN'T MOVE, HARRY!"

I started towards her, but stopped when I heard the hissing rasp of Mavra's laughter.

"You cannot stop what's happening, Dresden," Mavra said, a smug little smirk on her face. "It will not kill her— though I will when the process is done— it will only make her an ordinary woman again.

"The stone? It drains the power of the slayer from her. When it is through… any of your enemies will be able to kill her, if I should fail."

I stared in horror for a moment, then roared, "DAMN YOU, MAVRA!" and began gathering my will for a strike.

Before I could even get my power together, before I could do anything else, light flooded the world.

It came from the direction of Captain Midnight, and it spilled over everything in the area, illuminated everything in clear, sharp light that, while mostly white, had just a touch of pink to it.

Mavra hissed in either displeasure or pain— both, if I was lucky— and raised her hands before her face, so I looked down towards my wrecked car.

A young woman stood in front of Captain Midnight's hood, her fisted right hand raised over her head, and the light poured forth from her fist, or from something she held or—

"My god," I said softly. "My god, after all these years!"

—Or from something she _wore_.

Fourteen years before, I had been working for Nick Christian at Ragged Angel Investigations, doing the three years of apprenticeship I needed to get my own PI license under Nick because I liked and respected the man. He specialized in finding lost or stolen kids, and he worked for cheap when the parents didn't have the cash, for free if they were that poor. He did the job because he believed in the job, and that made him a boss I could and did respect the hell out of.

He'd taken the case of runaway ten year-old Faith Astor some six months before my apprenticeship ended, and I'd found the girl magically, using hairs from a hairbrush her mother had used on her. Faith had been in a bad part of town, and when I'd called Nick to come get us (the Blue Beetle had broken down that day and I didn't even have fare for the El), he'd told me that Faith's rich parents had changed their minds about paying us the twenty-five thousand they'd promised us for finding the kid— and reported her kidnapped by two guys who fit Nick's and my description.

I hadn't been willing to leave the kid in the bad part of town, so Nick agreed to come get us, and we'd drop her off at a cop station and leave. Of course, it hadn't been that simple. In trying to cross a bridge on foot to meet Nick, I'd discovered that said bridge was the territory of a troll, and that he considered naughty children— like runaway girls who fought, kicked and even bit their rescuers— his rightful prey.

I'd bluffed the troll off with a ring I wore back then, a plain silver ring that I'd enchanted to produce light. Faith had been amazed and interested to discover that magic was real— but despondent about going back to her wealthy, uncaring, disinterested parents. To drag her out of that dark mood, I'd put the ring on her finger and taught her to make it light up by calling up a truly happy memory.

Before the night was out, I faced down the troll with the aid of a young uniformed police officer named Karrin Murphy (first time I met her, and she attacked a troll with her nightstick— that's Murph for you!), turned Faith (who swore that she ran away, keeping me and Nick out of jail) over to Murphy… and let her keep that ring.

Now in her twenties— twenty-three, twenty-four, somewhere in there— Faith Astor was standing in front of my car, and the ring on her right index finger was pouring out enough light to turn night into day.

"Harry!" Faith called. "Harry, help her! Quickly! I don't know how long I can keep up this output!"

I turned back to Buffy, saw that the crystal in her hand was filling rapidly with darkness, took a step towards her— and raised my hand as the light from Faith's ring flared off of the silvered edge of the Scythe, blinding me for a second.

And I saw. In that moment of blindness, of white light tinged with just a hint of pink reflected back to me from the weapon that had been made for the slayer, I saw the solution.

"It's all right, Buffy," I called softly. "It will be all right. I promise."

I heard Mavra take a step behind me, then more light flared as I heard the rasp of a sword being drawn. I saw Lash out of the corner of my eye, the pure white light of _Fidelacchius_ burning as she drew the sword.

"Lash, I need you to hold her," I said, my voice calm. "I need you to keep Mavra here, but please… don't attack her."

"I… are you sure?" Lash asked.

"Positive." I took a deep breath and said, "There's something I have to do first— then she's mine.

"Where are Xander and Molly?"

"With Dawn, taking care of Arahnaviel's former host," Lash replied. "And I see Karrin coming, too."

"Okay. Listen, get someone to keep an eye on the Mordite, and feel free to keep Mavra from manipulating it— but remember, that blood-sucking bitch belongs to me!"

"I… yes, Harry," Lash sighed.

I heard Lash calling to Murphy to watch the sphere of energy around the Deathstone, but I wasn't really paying attention. I was focused on Buffy, who was staring in hate and fear at the stone in her hand, a stone that was rapidly filling up with the blackness that was the core of the original slayer power, something called up by wizards in the prehistory of her world, something that was, in some ways, as dark and dangerous as the vampires it existed to oppose. The Dracula of her world had even told her that their powers came from a similar source, and she'd believed him.

But the power of the Scythe, the power that Willow had managed to pass on to every other potential slayer on Buffy's Earth? That had been a bright, brilliant power that emulated the dark— but was not of it.

Faith's light, shining on the blade of the Scythe… it had reminded me that the Scythe was the source of power for literally thousands of girls on Buffy's earth. Yes, it had taken Willow Rosenberg, the most powerful witch on that Earth, to activate that power, and I wasn't the most powerful wizard on my world.

But I was in the top twenty or so, when it came to raw power, and I was _seriously_ motivated. It would be enough.

It had to be. I'd promised Buffy, so it _had to be_.

I looked at the woman I love, and I tried very hard to let go of all of the bad things that had happened since Mavra appeared. The hurt, the scared, the angry… and Elaine's death, the source for much of those feelings and other bad ones besides. I tried to think of only good things.

For me, magic is about emotion. I needed to let go of the negative emotions I was feeling if I was to have any chance at what I was about to try.

I thought about the people who were here with me, facing a monster as terrifying as Mavra because they cared about me.

Karrin Murphy. My oldest friend in Chicago, a woman who had trusted me when maybe she shouldn't have, who had stood by me when no one else would, and who had, in the end, given up her career, her identity as a police officer, to help me— and never looked back. A pure mortal, she often stood up to those who wielded magic or other supernatural power— like she was doing tonight— and did so successfully. Hell of a woman, my friend Murph.

Molly Carpenter, the daughter of another of my best friends, a wizard and a Warden. She had grown from a near-warlock who thought that magic was the best answer for every problem into a woman whose wisdom shone forth in her every unorthodox magical attack, in her decision to move home because her family needed her— and she needed them, an admission she couldn't have made when I first accepted her as my apprentice. She'd grown up— and I couldn't have been more proud of having had a hand in that process.

Lash. Lash, who had once been nothing but a mental construct, the shadow of the fallen angel Lasciel, but had grown into something more, something… wonderful. She had found her own existence— and promptly given that existence up to save me and my friends from the machinations of the Circle and the White Court vampire Vittorio Malvora. In the afterlife, she had found me, helped me, given me time to recover and her counsel, and had never asked for anything in return. Then she had found a way to live, truly _live,_ and had promptly risked her life to save me and mine— again. She had accepted the Sword of the Cross I'd offered her knowing full well that she wasn't likely to die of old age if she accepted it. That I'd had a hand in the creation of such a being… it was enough to put my pride at risk of being a sin.

Dawn, who had come into her own as not just a Watcher, but something more, something new, new and potentially wonderful. Who'd decided to help not just her sister, but me, and not just me, but all the people I wanted to help. I hadn't had a lot to do with who she was— but she called me family, stood by my like we'd known each other for years.

Xander. Xander, whose friendship had often been the rock that Buffy clung to, who had followed his friends into one kind of hell after another just because they were his friends. The man who had saved his world by loving one of his best friends and refusing to _stop_ loving her, even when she had turned away from the light and was trying to destroy the world. Who had done his best to make me see that I wasn't the bad guy I sometimes worried that I was, and who had mostly succeeded. Xander, whose ability to love had earned him the burden of one of the Swords of the Cross— and who had taken up that burden gladly and with a will. He was my friend, my brother in all the ways that counted.

And finally, Buffy. Buffy the Vampire Slayer, the woman who had, even as a girl, been so strong that she went to her death at the hands of the vampire called the Master— simply because it was what she was supposed to do. Who had fought off the end of the world so many times that even I lost count. The woman who had found a way to stand against things that couldn't be stood against, the warrior who never gave up, even after she had been yanked out of Heaven itself by well-meaning friends. The woman who had given her life for her sister, who had found a way to save her world even though she thought it would mean the end of her power, but who had thought to make sure that the lines of slayer and watcher endured past her even then. Who had led her best friend and her sister successfully through the Nevernever for over three months, who had been there to help me, to insure that I could come back to life successfully, who had become my friend, my employee. Who had stood beside me against the little things like John Marcone's goons, against the bigger threats of Glenn Corwin and his menagerie of monsters. Who had been there to help me, to help my friends and family, when Charity Carpenter died. Who had helped me save the lives of hundreds of wizards, who had stood with me against Outsiders and abominations, who had helped me bring Charity's killer to justice, helped me save my daughter and my friend's daughter—

—the woman I loved.

These six amazing people were here with me, fighting beside me. They were my friends, my family, the woman I loved— and I loved them all.

There. That was it. That was the feeling that had to drive this spell.

Spirit magic is (and this shouldn't surprise you) both a subtle magic— and one as direct as a hammer. It can be used for raw force, as I most often used it, or to make illusions, as Molly did. It could produce light, and every wizard I'd ever _known_ had used it for that simple purpose.

To me, light is the symbol of good. That's all. Light equals good, dark equals bad, at least in my head.

I gathered up my will, gathered up all the magic I could release at one time, and I crafted it as carefully as I've ever crafted any spell on a battlefield, and then some.

Most of that magic I used for light. A little became fire, but not enough to even heat the Scythe to an uncomfortable-to-hold temperature— just enough to purify the spell, because fire is a great force for purifying things, and to improve my control of the spell, because fire is the element I use more often than all others combined, and I understand it best of all the forces I wield.

Then, around all of that energy, around that carefully imagined construct in my head… around this, I wrapped all of the Soulfire that the spell could hold.

I pointed my staff at the Scythe and I said in a clear voice that somehow _rang_, _"Creo validus!"_

Light poured forth from my staff, gorgeous white light with little flickers of white flame and flashes of the silver of Soulfire all through it— and when it hit the Scythe, the blade of the slayer's weapon seemed to just suck it up, pull it in, make my power a part of itself. For a long moment, I simply poured magic forth into the Scythe with no visible effect—

—then the Scythe lit up from inside, flared white and silver— and for just a moment, I saw seven women standing between me and Buffy, figures as solid as I was. They ran in age from teenager to crone, in height from under five feet to almost six.

The one in front, a thirty-something woman with wild brown hair who wore rough tanned leather and carried a staff of her own, spoke to me.

"Wizard," she said, and she bowed her head my way in respect. "You have done well— and better than you hoped.

"As before, so now— but this time, we will be more careful. You have my word, wizard— and the thanks of all of us who strove to make this weapon, to make those in the Slayer line safer and more capable.

"You have done very well."

I wasn't really sure what she was talking about— but I bowed to them anyway, because they were obviously the women who had made the Scythe, so deserved my respect.

They vanished— and the light of the Scythe went out.

Buffy stood as she had before, but her head moved, looking back and forth between the now-jet-black ball of crystal in her hand to me, down to the Scythe, then back to the crystal. Finally, Buffy turned to look at Mavra.

"Hey, Mumm-Ra," Buffy called, and Mavra, looking back and forth uneasily between Lash and Faith Astor, looked her way. "This crystal… is it fragile?"

"No, girl," Mavra snarled. "You might have broken it at your full strength, but now? You cannot break it.

"You're a mortal, now. Get used to it!"

"Well, if you say so," Buffy said— and she grinned and tossed the crystal up in the air in front of her. As it came down, Buffy called, "Batter up!"— and swung the flat of the Scythe at the crystal.

The crystal shattered into a jillion pieces or so, and the blackness within hovered in front of Buffy for just a second— then sped off to the north and vanished from sight in a flicker of shadow.

"Mortal my ass," Buffy snickered. She smiled at me. "Thanks, honey— you kept your promise." Then she looked at Mavra, smiled maliciously, and said, "You know, Mumm-Ra, I'm pretty sure that you're just all around screwed— and it does my heart good to know that _you know_ that you screwed everything up before Harry killed you."

"I am not dead yet!" Mavra screeched— and she raised the stone in her left hand to eye level, began chanting.

I was tired. Really tired, and almost out of magic— I'd dumped a lot in that spell I'd used to kickstart Buffy with the Scythe's version of the slayer power. But I still had enough left for one moderately serious spell— and I used it.

I looked over my shoulder, found the floating orb of Mordite, aimed my staff that way and called _"Ventas servitas!"_ as I flipped my staff from pointing at the sphere— to pointing at _Mavra_.

"NO!" Mavra shrieked as she saw the sphere of pure destructive energy sailing at her, propelled by the wind I had called up. "NO, YOU CAN'T POSSIB—"

The sphere slammed into the vampire at about chest height, and started eating her away with a speed that was terrifying to think about.

I just had time to snarl, "That's for Elaine Mallory, you _**BITCH!"**_ before Mavra screamed one last time— and the disintegration process accelerated. In only a couple of seconds, the last bit of Mavra— her left hand, still clutching the Outsider-powered stone— vanished into the Mordite.

As soon as the stone disintegrated, the sphere of deadly matter and energy popped like a soap bubble, vanished into nothingness.

Then Buffy took my hand, pulled me to face her, and said, "Harry. Thank you. You saved me, just like you promised. But next time? It's my turn to save you, okay?"

"Yeah," I said. I tried a smile, but it didn't take. "Okay, Buffy." I turned and started walking towards where Elaine's body lay, and Buffy kept hold of my hand and came with me.

"I'm so sorry about Elaine," Lash said as she followed us. "I wish we could have saved her, Harry."

I didn't answer, couldn't answer.

Instead, I went and knelt beside Elaine's body. Lash had covered her as best she could in the cloak that she usually wore, but one hand, still clutching the end of the chain Elaine used— had used— as a focus for her magic stuck out from under the cloth.

I took her hand with the one of mine that Buffy wasn't holding, whispered, "Goodbye, Elaine," and waited there with her until the police arrived.

I woke up the next morning bleary and confused— it had been after three when we were allowed to leave the scene of the battle, and only then because John Stallings of Special Investigations pretty much made it happen.

There was an extra person in the bed with me. I opened my eyes and saw Buffy's head on the pillow next to mine, facing me, her eyes open and looking at me. Right— she'd come and lay down with me— nothing romantic happened, but she stayed with me, and I suspect that her presence was what had kept the nightmares at bay.

"Hi," she said, and kissed me lightly. "How do you feel, Harry?"

"I… okay." I took a deep breath. "I'll be okay. Right now… I feel pretty much like a pile of jigsaw pieces from about six different puzzles."

She nodded. "That's understandable.

"Hey. I love you, mister."

I smiled, just a little, and said, "Love you, too, lady."

We just lay there for fifteen minutes or so, her snuggled up to me— then the phone rang.

I looked at the clock before I answered it and saw that it was after eleven. I grabbed the phone and said "Dresden."

"Harry." It was Michael's voice, and he sounded… worried. Not really upset, but definitely worried. "Harry, I'm sorry to call you, I know that you had a bad night, but… Harry, something's happened to Alicia."

I sat bolt upright and snapped, "Is she hurt? What's wrong?" Buffy's hands immediately took my free one and squeezed gently. I squeezed back, but no more.

"It's not that, Harry, she's fine," Michael assured me hastily. "It's just… her school called me and had me come get her, there was… an incident.

"I think it would be best if you could come over, Harry. I hate to ask after the things that happened last night, but… I need your help."

"All right, Michael," I said, and scrubbed my face. "I need to get a quick shower, dress, and call a cab. Be there as soon as I can." Buffy squeezed my hand again, and I corrected, "As soon as we can— Buffy's coming with me."

"Thank you, Harry."

Buffy went down to her place while I showered and dressed in my apartment, then we met in the office. Karrin was actually there, though she was locking the door as I came down.

"Hey, Murphy, what's—"

"I'm coming with you," Murphy said. "Buffy told me that something's wrong with Alicia Carpenter, and I'm coming— it'll save you cab fare, so don't gripe."

"We're all going," said Xander from the elevator, where he and Dawn were just stepping into the office.

I didn't gripe.

We arrived at the Carpenter house at a little after noon. Michael's truck was here, and he opened the door for us before we even reached it. Only he and Alicia were here— Molly had gone to Edinburgh that morning to file her report and mine with the wardens, bless her— and Alicia looked fine. Nervous, but fine.

"What's up?" I asked as soon as we were all in the family room. "What happened?"

"Alicia, would you tell Harry what happened?" Michael asked. He sat right next to his second-oldest daughter, one hand covering hers.

"Yes, Daddy," the girl said, and looked at me, her dark eyes serious, but not frightened. "Uncle Harry, there's a girl in my classes at school who's a bully. Her name is Shelly, she's bigger than any of us, and she's mean. The teachers know she's a bully, but they can't be everywhere, not all the time, and she's smart enough that she's never been caught doing anything really serious.

"In PE class this morning… she started picking on my friend Jackie." Alicia sighed and shook her head. "Jackie's very small, Uncle Harry, and she's… well, she's no kind of aggressive, the opposite, really. But she's brilliant, she skipped a grade, and that's just one more reason that Shelly uses to pick on her.

"This morning it got physical. The teacher was in the locker room helping a girl who'd twisted her ankle, and we were playing basketball. Jackie got the ball and went for the basket, but she tripped— and ran right into Shelly."

I winced and nodded in sympathy. There'd been enough bullies at the orphanage I'd spent years in that I knew what came next.

"Shelly grabbed Jackie and threw her down," Alicia said, her voice steady, but her eyes bright with anger. "Then she stepped towards her and pulled her foot back to kick Jackie while she was down, and I… I grabbed Shelly and tried to pull her back— and she flew twenty-five feet at _least,_ Uncle Harry, and slammed into the wall hard enough that it knocked all the breath out of her, and I don't know how it happened, but all the sudden I'm really, really strong, and I didn't get tired at all in PE, and—"

Buffy interrupted then, threw back her head and let out a shout of laughter, then grabbed me and kissed me. "Harry, you GENIUS! You— you wonderful WIZARD, you!"

I didn't get it— but Xander did, and he laughed, too. "Holy— Harry, that's great!"

"What's great?" I asked, honestly confused.

Buffy didn't answer, just stood and said, "C'mere, Alicia."

Alicia looked at her father for permission, then stood and moved to stand opposite Buffy where we could all see them both. Buffy held her arm up like she wanted to arm wrestle without benefit of a table, and Alicia obligingly took her hand.

"I'm going to shove your arm down," Buffy said, smiling hugely. "You try to stop me."

"I'm strong, but not that strong," Alicia demurred— but she nodded.

Buffy shifted her weight a little, and she started pushing on Alicia's arm, trying to force it.

Alicia didn't move. She stood there, completely immobile, and resisted Buffy without any visible strain.

"Okay, have I made my point?" Buffy asked after a moment, and let go of Alicia's hand. Alicia stared at Buffy in shock, and Buffy grinned. "You're bigger than me, so you're stronger. I'm probably faster, and I may be more agile.

"Either way— Harry's training Amanda, so I'll train you."

"Train me…?" Alicia said, looking puzzled. "I don't understand, Buffy."

"Let me short form it," Buffy said with a grin so wide it must have hurt. "Last night, Harry pulled a Willow."

I got it, then.

The apparent leader of the women who'd appeared when I channeled magic into the Scythe had said to me, _"Wizard. You have done well— and better than you hoped._

"_As before, so now— but this time, we will be more careful. You have my word, wizard— and the thanks of all of us who strove to make this weapon, to make those in the Slayer line safer and more capable._

"_You have done very well."_

I looked at Buffy, and she nodded.

"I… I empowered more than just you?" I asked softly.

"Pretty sure, yeah." Buffy smiled and added, "Couldn't have been the original power, it vanished north, and this place was south of where we fought.

"You activated _slayers,_ Harry. No way of knowing how many— but I'd bet on a lot more than just Alicia, here."

"Oh." I thought about that. "When I did it… I saw these women, and one of them said, 'as before, so now— but this time we will be more careful.'

"What do you think she meant?"

"Well, I _hope_ she meant that this time there won't be any like Simone Doffler and her merry band of sociopaths," Dawn said. "That'd be nice."

"Amen," Buffy said. She looked at Michael, then, and asked, "Michael… will you let me teach her how to use the power? If that's what she wants?"

Michael closed his eyes for a moment, then opened them and looked at his daughter. "Alicia? Is that what you want?"

"Yes, Daddy," Alicia replied, her voice steady. "I want to make the world a safer place."

Michael stood slowly, looked at Buffy, and said, "All right. But Alicia—"

"No fighting until Buffy says I'm ready," Alicia said, and stepped into her father's arms, hugged him tightly. "I promise, Daddy."

An hour later, I was sitting on the back deck, enjoying a moment of quiet and the last bite or two of a sandwich when Michael came out and sat in the chair next to mine.

"Hey," I said softly. "You okay?"

"Worried," Michael admitted. "I trust Buffy like I trust you, Harry, but I'm a father. I can't help but worry."

"I understand." I snorted a little and added, "But that's what you get for raising your kids absolutely right, Michael. They want to help, and when the power to help more comes their way… they take it, just like you did. Like Charity did."

"Thank you," Michael said, taking my words for the compliment I'd meant them as.

For a while, we just sat there and looked at the sky, then Buffy and the others all came out, and the next thing you know, Buffy and Murphy were working together to teach Alicia the basics of falling and getting back up right there in the back yard.

I watched, and I kibitzed, and when the rest of the kids came home, I took Amanda Carpenter aside and I started teaching her the basics of magic. And I'll swear to you that, while I did so… I could feel Elaine watching me. Watching me… and smiling.

_Epilogue:_

Wow. It's been five years since I even opened this journal, let alone wrote in it.

Hey, I've been _busy,_ okay?

This thing needs some sort of ending, I guess, in case I never get around to updating it— or at least something to tell me where I was when I left off.

About a year after the mess with Mavra, the news started reporting that crime in the beleaguered city of Detroit was finally starting to diminish— though no one knew why. The trend kept up for a while, and I got suspicious and had Dawn do some checking. Sure as hell, John Marcone had moved to Detroit not long after our last confrontation. Hell, if he's taming the criminals there, it's an improvement that the citizens probably would give him a medal for if they knew. It's far enough away from me and mine that, so long as he stays clear of magic… I'll leave him alone.

Let's see… okay. Faith Astor. She became a part of my circle of friends after she rode to the rescue. Nowadays, she's in charge of the Midwest branch of the Paranet, and she does a great job of keeping track of the gossip and grapevine of the supernatural world. I managed to help her out some magically, and while she's not powerful enough for the White Council, she's learned to do a lot with what power she has.

Dawn is the head of the Watcher's Council, of which the Paranet is a part. She's trained a dozen Watchers from among the "in the know" crowd in Chicago, including a couple of retired members of Chicago PD's SI squad. (Rawlins isn't retired, but he swears that when he gets there, he's gonna be a Watcher. I'm all for it.) Dawn and Lash got married in February of 2012— Illinois legalized same-sex marriage in the summer of 2011— and they're as happy a married couple as I've ever seen.

Lash is still wielding _Fidelacchius,_ still doing the formerly-thought-impossible with her magic, and occasionally giving me lessons. I waste a lot less power these days, thanks to her. She still won't join the White Council, but that's no problem. She's also been teaching Molly magic, and pretty much anyone of my friends among the Council who ask her nicely— when she's not off fighting Denarians or some other monsters, that is.

Molly… she married Carlos eighteen months after her mom died, and they're living in LA, though they spend a lot of time here— enough that they've got an apartment here, too— what with her family being here, and most of her friends. Carlos doesn't mind— he's completely gone over Molly, hasn't even looked at another woman since they were married, I don't think. They're expecting their first kid any day now— and Carlos has already promised me that no male child will be saddled with the name Harry. (Of course, Molly _hasn't_ promised, so it's really not a sure thing….) Sometimes I miss the old days, when I could make Carlos back down by threatening to toss around "the V-word," but I'll get over it.

Xander is knighting and being a house-framer and a best friend to practically everyone he knows. He's never dated much— claims he doesn't have the time— but he recently met a wizard who came around to ask for my help with something, and he and Jane Halstead have gone out a time or three. Maybe something will come of it. I hope so— Xander Harris deserves to be happy, and I'm pretty sure he'd be a Michael-worthy father.

The White Council is fully engaged in a war with the Circle and its allies, nowadays— that's most of why I've not had time to write in this journal— and things are run in a way I approve of a lot more than I have in years. See, three years ago, Arthur Langtry, the Merlin, died in battle against the Circle. (I never liked the son-of-a-bitch— but he went out defending a small Welsh village against an assault by warlocks and ghouls, and he took every last one of the enemy combatants with him. For that, he gets my respect.) His replacement… is my grandfather, Ebenezar McCoy. Of course, that meant that Ebenezar had to give up the Blackstaff— the Merlin having the power to break the Laws of Magic with impunity is a scary combination— but he didn't mind at all.

Anastasia Luccio is the Blackstaff now. She tried to refuse it— but her sense of duty eventually got her to take it. If anything, she's more cautious about using the Blackstaff than my grandfather was, so it's all good.

Sanya? Still a knight, still claiming to be an agnostic— but still fighting the good fight.

Murphy… Karrin still works for me, is still a partner, but she's working a lot fewer hours, now, what with the family and all.

Yeah. Family.

See, over the year after I finally paid Mavra back for killing me, Murphy started spending more and more time at the Carpenters' house. A little over a year after that ugly night that cost the world Elaine Mallory but eradicated the bitch Mavra, Karrin and Michael got married. Two hundred and eighty-five days later (five over the two hundred and eighty average— I counted because I wanted to tease them [well, _him_ anyway] about sex-before-marriage, if I could), Murphy gave birth to a perfect little boy that they named Michael Alexander. (Over the father's protests. I could have told him not to bother— Murph's stubborn!)

So now Murphy works from nine to three, then goes home and plays wife and mother. I don't dare tease her about it, though— she can still kick my ass without breaking a sweat.

Amanda Carpenter recently got admitted to the White Council herself— and to the Wardens. She's damned near as powerful as me, and can do things with water magic that make her sister Molly raise her eyebrows.

Alicia lives here in Chicago, and often works with me and Buffy— she's one hell of a slayer, and I know what I'm talking about. After all, I married the best slayer that ever was or will be.

Michael's other kids… no more surprises (at least not yet— give little Michael a few years), which I think was a relief to him. He's proud of all his children, especially the four who are a part of the fight (Molly, Amanda, Alicia— and Daniel, who's a Watcher, these days), but he worries about them, too.

There are about three hundred slayers around the world, near as we can tell— and every year, on the anniversary of the day I accidentally-on-purpose activated more than just Buffy, more are called, between five and twelve new girls each year. They are allied with the White Council, and let me tell you, those girls have more than merely pulled their weight. They're a large part of why the Circle is on the losing end of the war…. I do good work, even when I don't mean to, I guess.

Three days after Michael and Karrin's son was born, Buffy came to me and said, "Harry, there's something I have to ask you. Will you marry me?"

I was flabbergasted. We'd been living together for a year by then, and I'd been ready to ask her when she did that. Of course I said yes— after I showed her the ring I'd bought her and made her cry happy.

Once we'd calmed down, she said, "Well, I'm glad we're getting married, Harry— because I want our child born to married parents."

I think they heard my whoop of delight over in Iowa.

We talked about it a lot, and we talked with Maggie about it, and she was okay with us raising the kid as our own— she babysits for us now pretty often, now, and both kids love her.

Yeah. Both kids. First came Joyce Elaine Dresden (we flipped a coin for which name would come first), then, about six months ago, she got herself a little brother. Malcolm Giles Dresden looks more like Buffy than me, but that's fair, because Joyce has dark hair, and is already showing signs of being tall.

You know, we never had to buy one of those baby alarm things, which is good, it probably would've broken with me around. But we didn't need it- Mouse slept in the kids' room, and he would come and get one of us when they fussed long enough to make it plain they needed attention. He even kept track of whose turn it was to get up. That's my super-dog!

Buffy? More gorgeous and more dangerous than ever. She's not showing her age much at all— she's almost thirty-five, and still looks younger than Dawn— which makes me think that maybe she's going to age like wizards do— or maybe more like we don't, if you get me.

That's fine with me. Every day with Buffy is worth a year of being alone. (Yes. I love my wife, and I'm not ashamed to admit it. Much. At least not in here. Now shut your yap!)

Maggie is apprenticed to Anastasia Luccio, who comes around regularly to teach the kid. Maggie manifested her magic this year, and I wasn't about to make the mistake of trying to be her mentor. I'm her father, and sometimes, you need to put mentoring first, which… I don't fool myself into thinking I could do. I love my kid too much to be the kind of harsh that I had to sometimes be with Molly— and Ana's one hell of a teacher.

I'm probably forgetting somebody, but it's late, I'm tired, and Malcolm is finally asleep (I've been rocking his cradle with my foot while I write this).

The world is still dangerous, still weird. Sometimes, the dark comes alive, the shadows grow fangs, and all hell breaks loose, all too often on those who aren't equipped to fling hell back at the problem. When that happens, me and my family and friends, we help if we can. We're pretty good at what we do, so if you need help, let someone know. Find someone with no cell phone, no digital watch. Look in a bookstore that sells real books, and has a cash register, not a computer. Talk to the weird people, the oddballs— the ones who listen, who believe you. Word might get back to us, and we'll do what we can. If all else fails, and you're in the Chicago area, check the yellow pages. I'm in there, under "wizards."

My name is Harry Blackstone Copperfield Dresden. Conjure with it at your own risk— because if you try it, my wife will probably kick your ass.

_~Finis~_


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